Honor For All
by The Royal Protector
Summary: Framed for a murder he didn't commit and exiled into the unkown this Marked One tries his best to adapt to his new world. He plots his revenge against the traitors who had stolen his life, he knew it would be hard, but he never thought he would learn to live again in this beautiful yet deadly world called Remnant.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello there, I'm The Royal Protector and you're reading the first chapter of Honor For All, an attempt of mine at crossover between RWBY and the world of Dishonored. The idea came to me when I picked up RWBY last weekend (and promptly finished it in two days' time) and I just couldn't not see the potential between the two franchises._

 _I have a general idea where I want to take this fic and don't intend to abandon it anytime soon *cough-cough*_

 _*A message to the readers of Mirror Images: that fic is officially abandoned but don't worry, I've been working a rework for quite some time and I hope to start it this summer*_

 _Other than that this fic's Dishonored part is AU, the RWBY part is mainly canon with some differences down the road._

 _*EDIT: I had to go back and change the POV of the first chapter because I was a complete idiot and wrote it in first person instead of third person, but don't worry this isn't a false update, chapter 3 is up as well.*_

 _So leave a review, follow and favorite if you feel like it, it really helps if I know someone reads these._

 _Enjoy:)_

 _Disclaimer: RWBY and Dishonored are not my property, the only thing I own are my OCs._

* * *

Chapter 1: Prologue

"Hyyahh!"

Ruby Rose leapt out the broken window of the store in which she was browsing through just a minute ago, she felt bad about the property damage done by her dropkicking a very rude thug to the other side of Vale but she had more pressing concerns at that moment. First of which were her would be robber's friends leaning into view to see what the commotion was about. She could see various expressions ranging from disbelief and shock to plain malcontent on their faces. She normally hated being the center of attention but now she reveled in it. In front of her were honest to Dust bad guys! They were here to rob one of her favorite shops and she was the only one who could stop them! She had the chance to do something good like the heroes her sister Yang told her about during bedtime stories.

'Alright Ruby, don't mess this up' She thought excitedly 'Just like uncle Qrow said, never fight if you don't have to, intimidation works just as fine' she reminded herself and straightened up. She brought out Crescent Rose, the most awesome and bestest weapon to ever slice Grimm if she were to be believed and activated the expansion mechanism. The sniper-scythe expanded into its full glory and she rested it on her shoulder, she added a confident smile to complete the awe inspiring look and struck the pavement in front of her with the bladed end of her weapon, beckoning them to either give up or attack.

"Okaaay" An orange haired man spoke up slowly, probably their leader in her opinion, he was the only one not armed currently.

"Get her" With a motion of his head he commanded the remaining thugs half-heartedly. They obliged and ran out to meet her head on.

'Oh, this is so exciting!' She thought with glee 'I can't wait until I get to tell Yang- huh?' She huffed and turned when she and her opponents heard the howling of the wind pick up just a couple of dozen meters away from them.

It centered around a front window of a nearby store and after a few seconds the wind grew in intensity until a black blur shot out of the glass with alarming speed. The blur flew across the empty street until it hit a parked car, hard.

"Ouch" She winced when she realized that the blur was actually a person and he or she completely wrecked the side of the car, setting off the alarm and shattering its windows. She almost burst into rose petals before the person gave an angry grunt of pain and clambered slowly to his feet using the ruined car as leverage. She considered running up to him and helping him but her attackers dispelled that notion when they shook themselves out of their stupor and jumped at her.

'Just hold on mister, I'll get there as soon as I can' Ruby thought determinedly, eager to help someone in need.

* * *

Corvin wheezed.

'Damn, she hit hard. I knew close quarters was Violet's specialty but I didn't expect that'

'No matter, as long as I'm breathing she's not going to win, she can't' He thought bitterly and lifted himself up from the ground, using what he guessed was the car he crashed into just seconds ago.

Corvin was in a horrible shape he had to admit, his body was hurting all over from slashes and bruises and he was pretty sure that the only things that held him up were the goodwill of the Void and the adrenaline flowing through his veins.

The man summoned his sword to him and leaned heavily on it. He brought his hand up to his face and cleaned off the blood from his eyes, it was getting harder and harder to stand even with his makeshift cane. He forced himself to look up and focus on the scene in front of him, then his eyes widened.

"Shit, shit *cough*" The man panicked and almost doubled over as he emptied his lungs of blood but he forced himself to limp forward.

He hated fighting in the Void. That place defied logic and every set of laws physics had. It was completely unpredictable, unnatural and felt all around off according to every person Corvin knew. The place was magical, beautiful even, but people could easily lose their sanity in it if they spent too much time there, which alone didn't mean anything in a place that transcends even the concept of time itself.

Another thing he hated about the Void was fighting in it, every Marked One or anyone with a basic understanding of the powers the Void held gained a massive power boost while there but the drawbacks negated the benefits in most cases. No time and space to manipulate, no flora or fauna to make use of.

And of course the complete randomness of the place didn't help one bit.

A few minutes ago Corvin and Violet were fighting in the Council Chambers over the body of their late mentor and not another minute later they ended up in the Mirror Room.

By the Outsider he hated that place. It was basically the archive of all known and yet unknown worlds to the Order. The spacious room contained several mirrors of varying sizes, all gateways to a completely separate world connected to the Void.

He questioned how could someone tell if a world was connected to the Void when he joined up with the Order and he was given a simple answer; if it has something akin to 'magic' or something similarly unexplainable by that world's physics then it is part of an untold number of others all under the milky shroud of the Void.

As to his current predicament and him trying to frantically get back to the reflective surface he emerged from Corvin was completely justified in his hurry as he caught sight of his sister gazing though the distorted glass.

Corvin let out a grunt of exertion and brought up his bloodied left hand and pointed it at ahead of him. Ethereal energy began to seep out of his hand as he focused at a point on the other side.

With a thought he let go of the energy and found himself searing through the air faster than the human eye could see.

"Ah!" He exclaimed in pain when he impacted the ground just before the glass. He was more tired than he thought, he was unable to maintain his speed and course so he crashed, again.

Corvin clutched his throbbing head and forced himself to stand up once more. It took a couple of seconds but when he managed to he was faced with the form of his kind sister. A furious scowl appeared on Corvin's face and he activated the sword again, this time with killing intent.

Corvin concentrated on the other side like last time but with a different technique. A millisecond later his arm turned into that of a wraith's, long like a boa and black like coal. He was about to pull himself into the room when the arm was cut off in the middle by his partner.

It didn't hurt him per se but it further drained his power reserves, Corvin quickly retracted what remained of it and collapsed onto his knees, panting and sweating heavily.

"Give it up Corvin, I won, it's over" Violet called to him in a commanding tone. Corvin just snorted.

"So what? You expect me to roll over and die?" He bit back sarcastically to which she narrowed her eyes.

"No, I expect you to accept my offer of forgiveness and stand by my side like before" She looked him in the eye directly with a gaze that brought back memories. Corvin got engrossed in them for a moment before he shook his head.

"Don't insult us both Vi, you know exactly of how I feel about your idea of the Order's future" He spat some blood to the side "What you're doing is insane and I will never support it" He declared with venom in his voice. She looked completative for a bit then her expression turned into a sad frown.

"If that's the case then by the powers granted to me by the Grandmaster's office I hereby declare you an exile of the Void, Your rank and other titles will be stripped from you and if we ever hear about you again I will not hesitate to give the kill order to every member" She recited and brought up her own hand, tendrils of darkness shot out from her mark and grabbed the edges of the glass.

"No! Wait-" Corvin mustered what strength he had and tried to stand up as he saw the tendrils constrict around the edges and slowly but surely cracking the mirror on both ends. Unfortunately he wasn't fast enough and received a bullet to the torso in response. The force behind it knocked him to the ground and left him in shock. He focused his eyes and applied pressure to the wound with his hands.

"You've brought this on yourself" She shook her head and holstered her pistol, after a moment of silence her expression hardened and she balled her marked hand into a fist.

The mirrors gave in and exploded into thousands of small shards, leaving Corvin alone on some street in an uncharted world.

His eyes once again widened, but not because of surprise or fear, no, this time it was dread. He was lost in a world no one had ever been to with no help coming because they all thought he was an enemy of the state, a traitor to the cause, a murderer.

And if that wasn't enough then him bleeding out surely didn't help either. Shock was slowly setting in, Corvin couldn't feel his fingertips, so that was an indicator of how much blood he had lost already, if that didn't stop he would lose control of his hands shortly, leaving him literally powerless as most techniques required some gestures with the hands. And then the paralysis would follow and last but not least, death.

Sunshine and roses, all in all.

"No, no, no, no" Corvin chanted, getting to his knees. 'It wouldn't end like this! It can't! There was light somewhere in this dark tunnel and I would find it' The bullet in his chest wiggled with every move he made and caused it to burrow further into him. That hurt, a lot. He whimpered and grunted as he applied more pressure to the hole. It didn't seem to work as blood still flowed nigh unhindered and got soaked up by his black clothing or fell freely to the pavement below.

He disregarded it with a pained expression and unsteadily got to his feet.

'Right, if I remember correctly the connection between worlds remains even after the original gate's destruction. The function of the gate just transfers to another reflective surface…'

'Sometimes in the vicinity of the original' Corvin allowed himself a bloodied smirk as he pictured a lightbulb above his head. 'Looks like I'm in some sort of city… I better get a vantage point where I could spot Void related anomalies easier' He mused and shakily brought up his bloodied left arm.

'Blink' Corvin mentally commanded and travelled the distance between the roof and the street in less than a second, once up he was greeted with the light breeze of the wind. He allowed himself a small smile at the cool feeling before opening his eyes again.

"Huh?" He startled 'How the hell didn't I notice a battle going on a rooftop above me? With a hovering VTOL no less?!' His legs chose this moment to shake weakly, reminding him that his blood reserves were in the red and his bodily functions shouldn't be trusted to maintain themselves without effort on his part.

He shook his head and palmed his face, it wasn't his fight by any means. He wasn't here to fight someone else's battle, especially not in his current state. And it seemed the blonde and the fiery shadow woman stalemated each other rather well, so it was a fair fight in his book.

He sighed and tiredly turned around. Ignoring the sounds of battle just behind him he closed his eyes and focused on his clenched fist. After a moment Corvin opened his eyes and saw the world differently, gone was the blackness of the night as it was replaced by the greyness of the world, countless white blurs dotted his vision, souls of thousands of citizens, no doubt but he wasn't looking for them.

'Bingo' Corvin grinned victoriously as he caught notice of a black whirlpool just a couple of streets away. While white was the color for living things and grey for the inanimate objects black was the color for 'magic'. He said magic but it's more complicated than that, black represented anything Void related; active or passive uses of its powers, users of said power and many more anomalous phenomena.

Corvin settled into a jump/sprint stance and was just about to 'blink' away towards his salvation when a thunderous explosion made him stumble and almost fall down. He caught himself just in time but the sound of various alarms going off at once made his eyes twitch with dreadful anticipation.

He looked up and was presented with the visage of glass, shattered glass, littering the streets.

Corvin was livid, rage started to boil within him and he wasn't sure if he could stop it, even if he wanted to. Still, Corvin made a quick check and confirmed that no black spot was present in viewing distance, indicating that every window in the neighborhood shattered and that the gateway transferred to another location entirely.

He grit his teeth and balled his soaked fists with barely contained anger. Corvin could feel the turmoil in the palm of his hand as the Mark reacted to his emotions, it itself bursting with dark tendrils. He slowly turned around with a murderous expression on his face and regarded the situation briefly.

He saw the blonde and a scythe wielding girl jumping away from an explosion from under their feet and land a couple of feet away. Turning away from them Corvin regarded the woman in the chopper, she looked at him with narrowed eyes as if she was challenging Corvin to intervene.

"Oh, it would be my pleasure" Corvin broke into a feral grin and obliged happily. He was in a sorry state, but he was by no means a pushover, in fact he was one of the more trained Marked Ones in existence, courtesy of having a Grandmaster as a tutor and mentor.

He lifted his hand and his Mark flared in obedience. A tendril of darkness shot out of it and impacted the airship, it burrowed deep into it with the intent of spreading and expanding, essentially looking for the fuel tanks and 'accidentally' combusting them.

The plan looked good on paper but the woman shot multiple pellets of burning glass into the appendage and set it on fire. Corvin let go of the burning arm and watched as it was quickly consumed by flames. He huffed in annoyment and looked directly into her eyes. She had the audacity to smirk and let flames appear in her eyes.

Corvin took a double take and quickly confirmed his suspicions and showed that if she expected a quick fight she would be sorely disappointed. His eyes were normally the color of the Void itself. Grey, white and black clouds swirled around his iris while the white of his eyes was spiderwebbed with red and black veins. That itself was really noticeable and odd to a normal person but when he concentrated on them while using his powers they glowed brightly. The grey became a brilliant silver, the white became the color of a full moon while the black took on the shade of pure coal.

She was different from the rest, even compared to the other two people on the roof, her white soul molded with the black of the Void. Corvin could make out that one other person had a black smoke cloud wrapped to her soul but the blinding white of her soul almost made it invisible. The other woman beside her didn't have any darkness in her but the light given off from her soul nearly blinded Corvin. However he wasn't worried about them at the moment, his attention was focused on the woman in the air.

She was dangerous.

Corvin narrowed his twitching eyes and waved a hand, challenging her to make a move.

To her merit she was only surprised for only a moment at the sight of his appearance before her eyes took on an edge and went on the offensive.

She summoned several burning glass shards, now the size of swords and hurled them at Corvin with the speed of a high powered bullet. Corvin didn't move from his spot and acknowledged the sound of metal on metal with a small smile.

The blade in his hand clanged as he parried every sword that came his way. A few shattered after impact, leaving behind fiery embers slowly dissipating in the air while most others remained solid and impacted the ground around Corvin with a shlick.

To the outsider's eye it seemed that he moved at lighting speed parrying projectiles that came one after the other at machine gun speeds but a quick glance at his clenched fist would tell anyone knowledgeable that he wasn't playing fair.

Indeed to him the world lost its color and everything slowed almost to a crawl around him. Every Marked One had a certain 'affinity' towards something. Some people were excellent at space manipulation or spirit control, mind-reading, summoning and the like while others struggled in these fields. Of course, if anyone spent enough time learning and training something they would almost be just as good as someone with any affinity towards that subject. Case in point, Corvin's affinities were Time Dilation and soul control and he was proficient in both but if he were to go up against a member of the High Council he would admit without hesitation that he would lose, badly.

Corvin couldn't stop time entirely, it required immense concentration and years of training and even then only a few people managed to achieve that feat.

And they had all died a long time ago.

This charade went on for a short while before his opponent seemingly had enough and decided that the shotgun option was more fruitful. She summoned dozens of projectiles around herself and sent them away at the same time with a mad expression.

Corvin frowned and as he had to drop the time dilation field and jumped away. He did so just in time and was about to retaliate when he felt something pierce his lower leg. Corvin collapsed onto a knee and glanced at his leg.

She managed to pick up a glass sword while he was preoccupied and hurled it at him.

"Fuck" Corvin muttered as realization dawned on him.

All around him swords were picked up by an invisible force and darted to him. He was effectively immobilized by that sword in his leg and so he was forced to block with his own to keep the others away.

"Ah!" He was managing to parry for a while but it seemed the blood loss and exhaustion finally got to him and he slipped. A blade went through his defenses and buried itself into his midsection next to the bullet he got earlier.

It didn't end there, it was a landslide from there. It didn't even take a second for the next to come, and the next, and the one after that. By the end Corvin looked like a pin cushion full of glass and he wasn't sure how he was still alive at all, There was white around the edge of his vision and he couldn't feel most of his body by this point.. A painful glance upwards told him the answer; the woman was grinning ear to ear with a sadistic look in her eyes that told him everything.

She was toying with him.

Corvin sent her a weak, bloodied smile that promised misery and pain.

'Time for Plan Z'

Corvin's eyes flashed as he focused on his left hand, thankfully it was responding to his commands and moved around. He smiled in anticipation and turned his attention back to the woman on the airship, it was turning to leave and the side door was about to close.

'Running so soon?' Corvin mentally taunted her and gathered every ounce of strength he possessed. He let go and several dark tendrils shot forward from his open palm and impacted the sides of the ship. They latched onto it and effectively anchored it in place, a few strands went for the door and pried it open with otherworldy strength. The woman stood there completely stunned, unable to move.

'Bingo'

Corvin focused on another technique he had learned just recently, it was a highly controversial and experimental technique among his peers but he couldn't deny its effectiveness.

Another tendril shot out of Corvin's hand but this one was different, it wasn't physical, it looked like an ethereal dark shroud darting towards its victim. It was highly efficient even with a moving target, this one's hesitation just made it easier to track and hit. It met no resistance as it latched onto her body and secured itself. Once it was done with that the technique went to do its work.

'Soul steal' was a powerful technique.

Some say it should be illegal, some don't.

But even they say it should come as a last resort.

And if this wasn't a situation that called for it than Corvin didn't know what situation warranted it.

Her wits returned to her once she realized she had been caught and begun to struggle and try to pry it off of herself. It made no difference as Corvin felt the ethereal tendril supply him with her 'life force'. Like a pulsating vein it fed him and he grew stronger, his wounds began to rapidly heal, the swords began to disintegrate when some form of darkness enveloped them or pushed them out of his body. It was working, he could feel it, it didn't take ten seconds and all the swords were taken care of, another five and Corvin's wounds began to close.

Corvin stood up with a satisfied smile plastered on his face. He now felt even better when he came here, A bit of contemplation later he discerned that he had returned to his full potential and was about to end her suffering when he noticed something in the corner of his vision.

The woman was desperate by this point, screaming her lungs out her arms lit up and she made some blind motions with them.

"Ah!" Corvin let out a scream of pain as an intact sword impaled his hand.

His Marked hand.

The blind, desperate attack pierced the tattoo like mark and caused it to violently shake. Blinding light shone from his hand and the tendrils begin to falter and die. He was still getting energy but he could feel that it was doing something to his body. Corvin's eyes widened in fear as he watched his hands change before his very eyes…

They were aging… backwards.

That wasn't all, Corvin's mark was behaving weirdly, it changed the intensity of the life drain back and forth and what was worse the dark tendrils returned, only this time they slithered up Corvin's arm and burrowed into it, right down to the bone and went along from there.

He fell to his knees, paralyzed by the excruciating pain, his eyes dilated and he almost bit his tongue. He focused all of his willpower to keep his eyes open and sent a command to stop before both of them died of the sheer trauma. Only it wasn't working, his Mark was going haywire and didn't accept any input from him.

Corvin forced himself to blink as his body aged backwards slowly. he glanced at the sword stuck in his hand an idea came to his mind. Corvin brought his shaking arm around and grasped the offending piece of glass. With a gigantic effort he slowly pulled the sword out and threw it as far away as he could, it impacted the street down below and shattered with a sharp sound.

The light suddenly cut off and the smoke like tendril dissipated. The Mark's activity screeched to a halt and so did the tendrils, although they got all over Corvin's left arm and shoulder. What was unusual was that they didn't disappear, they were just there pulsating… and causing large amounts of pain.

He disregarded the pain for now and looked up to find that the airship was now speeding away and that the original pair that was fighting that woman was now looking at him with an angry frown and… awe? Nevertheless, Corvin didn't need the publicity right now so he concentrated on a rooftop across the street and gave the mental command to 'Blink'.

Corvin stopped and began hyperventilating due to the enormous amounts of pain suddenly coursing through the entirety of his left arm. He doubled over and began convulsing as he could feel the beginning of a pain induced seizure setting in. The pair rushed up to Corvin and asked if he was okay, they got no response from his fading consciousness and the last thing he saw before blacking out was the redheaded girl dialing someone on her phone? And the blonde regarding him with worry and suspicion.

* * *

 _And that was that, I don't know when I will be able to continue this but I'll try to do it as soon as I have the time. Until then, take care._


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello there, I'm The Royal Protector and you're reading the second chapter of Honor For All and I have an apology to make, MS Word's spell check and auto correct can be a bit annoying sometimes, especially with names. I use the Hungarian version and it changes names accordingly, see Violet-Viola. I went back and fixed this problem but it just rubbed me the wrong way._

 _ecoolasice: Thanks and if you're thinking about the protagonist then don't worry, I made sure not to make him overpowered for a good few chapters until he realizes the whole reality of his situation. If you're talking about the story then I'll I have to say that I didn't put the M rating there as a joke. Corvin isn't the kindest of characters at this point and his scenes will reflect that, but don't worry, scenes with the cast present are a bit lighter._

 _So leave a review, follow and favorite if you feel like it, it really helps if I know someone reads these._

' _thoughts'_

" _speech"_

 _*sounds*_

 _Enjoy:)_

 _Disclaimer: RWBY and Dishonored are not my property, the only thing I own are my OCs._

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Revenge Solves Everything**

'Ugh' Corvin mentally groaned as he felt consciousness slowly returning to him. His throat felt dry as the desert and he found opening his eyes almost as hard as when his alarm clock rung to wake him up during finals week. Yes, that was it, maybe he was just dreaming last night's events, he says dream but it was more like the worst nightmare he had ever lived through. The thought made him shudder and scoff, being exiled from the Order was one of his biggest fears, and that fight with Violet was just a figment of his imagination, she was probably in the living room drinking coffee and going through the news on her phone. Were he to wake up and go out she would make a sarcastic remark about him getting up late, as usual, with a small smile tugging at her lips. He would retort in kind and make his own coffee before going to university. She would do the same and attend her own classes, then after coming home they would bicker an hour about who should cook and probably end up ordering something instead. He smiled with closed eyes, family life was good.

Of course, it hadn't been all sunshine and roses, they would sometimes argue about the future and their ideas regarding it. Sometimes their arguments got a bit heated and chairs, dark tendrils, bullets and honest to Void curses were thrown around but it was all goodhearted, mostly.

Such was sibling life.

They knew each other's opinion down to every word yet they still disagreed on it, sometimes just for principle's sake. Yet they still stirred up each other.

Having a battle to the death with her sister seemed ridiculous now, but as they say hindsight is 20/20 and besides, he would have won, easily.

He chuckled.

And those weird people on that world? He grinned at the thought of that red clad girl with an oversized scythe and that blonde woman with that riding crop, what was his brain thinking back then? Someone from Harry Potter would fit here just perfectly, he summarized. And that flaming psycho chick, he had no words for her, he was still itching to wipe that grin off of her face, with a bullet, preferably buckshot.

He had a headache apparently, his head hurt and his eyes still refused to open. He mentally frowned, was he hungover?

'Oh, great. Vi will a field day with me' He groaned 'Just before our paired assignment as well' He mused while thinking what kind of alcohol could cause this level of nausea. He had to find out, maybe he could use it on Vi as revenge for the teasing he will surely get today.

'Alright, I put this off long enough now' He decided and tried to open his eyes, but to his surprise they didn't budge. He grimaced and decided he would try something else instead. He was exceptionally proud of himself, he had to do an actual step-by-step process just to get up from his bed.

As any functional adult should.

Actually now that he thought about it, he wasn't laying in his bed, or anyone's for that matter.

He was sitting in a quite uncomfortable metal chair.

'Great, managed to pass out in the middle of campus'

He swallowed and felt a tinge of pain assault his senses. His vocal chords felt torn, and they hurt a bit. He raised a mental eyebrow, he wasn't the singing type, not even when he was drunk. Seeing that physical attempts led nowhere he went with the spiritual one.

He concentrated on his Mark and activated 'Dark Vision'.

He hissed in pain and his eyes finally shot open from the shock. His entire left arm felt like it was wrapped in a white hot metal beam that burrowed into his bones and muscles. The pain thankfully receded after a bit and he looked at his hands.

"Wha-? No, no, no!" He said, his voice was coarse and rough from his torn chords. His right arm was normal aside from the fact that it was younger than it had any right to be, years younger.

What was the real kicker was his left arm, it was wrapped in bandages from his shoulder down to his wrist, with a small extension just covering his Mark. He didn't see all of it, but he felt the fabric on his skin.

His mind went into a frenzy.

'Last night was real!?' He suddenly remembered every small detail that eluded him before and with each passing second his eyes grew larger and his hands began shaking. He fought with Violet, he lost, badly. He was cast out and threatened never to return or face the consequences. He was accused of something he didn't commit! He was framed! He became a disgrace in the eye of everyone he held dear! He was exiled!

By Violet.

He grit his teeth and was about stand up and let out all of his rage when a door suddenly opened in front of him. It snapped him out of his anger and realized that he didn't bother to check out his surroundings.

He was sitting on a metal folding chair with a metal table in front of him, with his weapons on it. His modified pistol and his folding sword, in all their glory. He was in an interrogation room by the looks of it, the walls were made of white bricks with a two-way mirror to his right. There was only one exit, the door on the other end of the table, behind another metal chair.

A man stood in the doorway with a cup of steaming coffee in hand and a passive expression on his face. He looked to be in his late forties if Corvin had to guess, with an all grey hair and a cane he certainly looked the part. He wore green and black clothes and had black tinted glasses that were probably only there for aesthetic purposes.

He didn't even say a word as he made his way over to the table, he set his cane against it and sat down, intently looking at Corvin. He returned the gesture and they stared at each other for a few silent minutes.

"You have… peculiar eyes" The man finally broke the choking silence with that simple statement. Corvin however was thrown off by it.

"Uh, I'm sorry?"

"I have never witnessed anything like them before" He confessed, still looking at him intently "I'm merely curious about how someone could possess such a rarity" He clarified. Corvin narrowed his eyes and waited a few seconds before opening his mouth.

"But, we're not here to discuss eye coloring now, are we?" The man cut him off before he could even say a word "I'm Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon academy" He introduced himself briefly.

"Corvin, Corvin Halden" Corvin hesitantly returned the gesture.

"A pleasure" The professor responded "Now, you must be wondering what had happened and where you are?" He continued, finally breaking eye contact if only to sip at his coffee.

"Not exactly, no" Corvin shook his head and gestured around him "This looks like an interrogation room and my interrogator is actually talking to me instead of beating me" he shot a look at Ozpin "So I'll hazard a guess and say this is a police station, you probably brought me here after I blacked out and treated my arm" He shrugged.

"Quite observant for someone of your age" Ozpin commented with a raised eyebrow. That sentence however made Corvin flinch which didn't avoid Ozpin's attention.

"Yeah, looks can be deceiving" He supplied weakly, his mind still not coming to terms with his state. He glanced at his arms worriedly. Ozpin huffed in agreement but otherwise remained content observing the young man.

"Why am I not restrained and why aren't my weapons locked away?" Corvin asked with a raised eyebrow. He flexed his arms and nodded to his inactive weapons to indicate his point. Ozpin took out a tablet like device from his vest and played a recording, he gave it to Corvin.

"We saw your fight on the rooftop and decided that it would be wise not to agitate you, especially after waking up in an unknown environment with strangers surrounding you" He explained his reasoning in a calm manner "The police disagreed at first but they came around when someone made the point that it probably made no difference whether you had your weapons or not" He chuckled.

Corvin had to give it to the man, he was handling the situation very well, especially if he saw the whole fight and knew that he could kill him before he even got up from his seat if he said something offending. No one needed an unnecessary misunderstanding, however he was still unsure if he was sure about his position here. This was a police station and maybe he was in custody right now. He frowned, he didn't need that bundle of trouble right now. He had other plans that probably clashed with whoever's custody he was in right now. His second statement was also true. He could break out of this station no problem with or without his equipment. And he wasn't boasting in the slightest.

The only difference between the two paths was how irritated he would be at the end of it.

And the number of dead bodies in his wake.

"Thank you" He said earnestly, while he wouldn't hesitate to leave the building soaked in blood that didn't mean he would enjoy it. Ozpin nodded with a small smile.

"You're welcome, now I have some questions to you if that wouldn't be a problem?" He asked in a friendly manner.

"Of course, I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability" He replied straight faced and Ozpin nodded.

"Where did you learn to fight like that?" He played a recording showing Corvin deflecting swords one after the other with relative ease, from an outsider's perspective he was moving at lightning speed. Corvin remained silent for a moment, secrecy was one of the pillars on which the Order was built upon and while technically he wasn't a member any longer he wasn't intent to sell them out. He thought about it for a minute, this world was using the arcane rather freely so he wasn't in as much trouble as if he landed in a purely technological society. The blonde and the fiery psycho were proof enough .Yeah, he could work with that.

"My late mentor taught me everything I know" He replied truthfully "He took me in when I was young and vulnerable and treated me like his own son. He was harsh, unforgiving and a strict perfectionist but looking back I know that every lesson he taught me was worth its weight in gold" He gestured to the recording. Ozpin huffed in agreement and nodded.

"What were you doing before the battle took place?"

"I'm fresh off the boat, so to speak" He shrugged "I spent a good part of my life far from civilization and after my mentor's death I realized that nothing was holding me back to our place, so I left. I hoped this city would have a few opportunities for someone like myself" He explained. His story was intentionally hazy so if he needed he could expand upon it later, but he hoped that it was not too vague that the man wouldn't buy it.

"And why did you intervene in the fight?" Ozpin inquired in a level tone.

"I saw that red hooded girl fight with a few people and that got me curious" He lied through his teeth "I observed the fight for a bit and realized who the aggressor was. One of the most important lessons ingrained in me by my mentor was to help those in need if I had the means to do so, so I did. At first as I was about to jump in it occurred to me that maybe I was out of my depth, seeing as the combatants were throwing around explosions and storm clouds" As if, fully powered he would have wiped the floor with everyone present "and turned away to leave"

"But then I felt an explosion rocking everything and sending me off balance so I turned back and saw the other two jumping away from explosions at their feet. I tried to buy some time for them to either leave or collect themselves. It worked but things got out of hand pretty fast" He shrugged and gave and apologetic smile.

Ozpin looked passive, Corvin couldn't decide if his silence was a good or a bad sign, but he could feel an oppressive feeling in the back of his head suggesting that he didn't buy anything he said. He didn't know why but he suddenly felt nervous, as if he was sitting across a member of the high council. He didn't like the feeling one bit. Why was he feeling this way? He had faced much scarier and more powerful beings before and not even they could cause this kind of reaction in him. He would have swallowed hard but his vocal chords flared every time in protest when he tried. The feeling didn't go away as the minutes dragged on and he could feel a knot form in his stomach but thankfully Ozpin broke the oppressive atmosphere.

"Very well, Now I just have one last question" Ozpin said curtly. Corvin nodded quickly, eager to get away from this choking presence.

"What will you do now?"

That question hit him hard, he expected something about his powers or how he had appeared out of nowhere or even him calling him out on his lies, but he didn't expect this. He was ready to defend his story or attempt a breakout or if the situation demanded it coming out with the truth, but not this. What was worse, he himself didn't know the answer to that question.

"I don't know" He admitted in defeat after a few tries to come up with something. That man emitted an aura that actively choked him! He didn't feel it when he came in but he now felt as if he was steadily growing its intensity.

"If that's the case, then I would have a proposition for you" The man hummed and adjusted his glasses. Corvin raised an eyebrow, he had no idea what to do, he wanted to go back but that would take time and resources, of which he had neither. On the other hand why would he trust this man, whom he only met just now? He could make do without any help, financial or otherwise but he'd rather avoid the criminal underworld of this world, but seeing as he wasn't about to go to a government or a civilian sector he had few choices. He had limited options, and he didn't like any of them.

"You see, this year's first semester in my academy is about to start tomorrow" He lifted his mug to his mouth, Corvin eyed the professor oddly "I've been told that I have a great eye for talent and when I look at you I see a special spark that I only find in very few" He told Corvin with a smile. "My school takes in such talented individuals and trains them to become something more than they could have ever imagined".

"Uh, I think I get what you're trying to say but I think I'm a bit too old for school" Corvin denied unsurely, He was finishing his last semester in university and was about write a paper on the pre-world war German empire, no way he would pass as a freshman.

"Oh, nonsense. It is not uncommon that students are held back a year or two for various reasons" Ozpin waved his mug in dismissal. Corvin now realized something and looked at his hands again. He was younger, how younger he didn't know but if it was young enough for the professor to mistake him for an older teenager then he didn't know what to say. It seemed that Ozpin sensed the trepidation in him and got up from his seat.

"Well, I have to take my leave now. My offer will still stand when you make up your mind, if you decide to attend Beacon then go to flight terminal 4 at 1 pm. if not that's alright as well. Regardless, you're free to leave the station anytime you please" He picked up his cane and mug and made to leave.

"Wait, I'm good to go?" Corvin asked surprised. He thought they were going to accuse him of property damage or something.

"Yes. You didn't do anything bad young man, I just wanted to have a word with you" Ozpin called from the doorway.

Corvin's jaw was hanging loose at that, it was all just a ruse to get him off center. The environment, the calm demeure and that aggressive aura. He had to give respect to the man, he controlled the conversation easily and got the answers he wanted. Not the ones he gave but the ones he saw in him. His respect for the man suddenly grew even more, he knew what he wanted to know, and how to obtain it. Still, he was curious about this man and wanted to know more. There was only one thing left for him to do, because he was sure that Ozpin fellow wasn't a normal human. He painfully activated his Dark Vision…

"Holy shit"

The man stopped in the doorway and glanced back into the room, once seeing Corvin's expression he put on a small, kind smile and left after a moment.

He turned as white as marble and began sweating profusely with wide eyes and a face to match is surprise. The activated ability besides the normal white, black and grey vision could also show how intertwined a person was with the more arcane aspects of the Void. Corvin played a few video games in his free time and categorized the people with Void powers likewise. For example an amateur who had just discovered the Void was considered Level 1 while someone with a fresh Mark was sitting around Level 10. He himself was experienced and strong enough to be considered Level 45-50 at full power while someone on the High Council ranged anywhere from level 70 to 90 and at the top of the food chain sat the Grandmaster at Level 100. Levelling wasn't linear in this case, with each level requiring several times the previous.

But Ozpin.

He was that enemy you meet in a game who, instead of a level counter has a white skull.

A Void damned white skull.

For those who don't play games that means you can't defeat them alone no matter how hard you try with conventional methods.

And he was alone.

And he lied to his face.

…

…

…

He sighed.

He needed a drink.

* * *

"At least I'm still alive" Corvin muttered under his breath, absentmindedly rubbing at the place where the bullet punctured his chest.

It was 7 in the morning, he learned when leaving the police station and so there were no bars open at all. He also learned that his fight with his sister and that pyro chick happened last night and that he was out like a light for almost 6 hours. They said that his body shut down in order to prevent him from overloading his pain receptors and consequently dying. They bandaged his left arm and turned a blind eye to the "black smoke snake thing" burrowing itself into his appendage, probably Ozpin's doing he guessed with a bitter taste in his mouth. He didn't like the man, his previous revelation put the man in a new spotlight in Corvin's eyes. He gave off a sinister aura that rung a lot of alarm bells in his head. His appearance felt deceiving, something made only to hide some other side of the man, maybe the calmness and detachedness he showed was just a face he put on to set him off balance, and it worked spectacularly. Ozpin made him talk when he should have just put a bullet in his head and walked away.

It made him nervous. Him, who was regarded as a person whom many feared on an instinctual level, it bothered him slightly that many thought so, but the reputation came with the job, he mused. Still, many respected his skill and accomplishments either through fear or awe. He himself didn't fear many people, and those he did earned that by first-hand experience. Fortunately most of them were on the High Council and above his paygrade, so he didn't have the chance to interact with most of them on a regular basis. Still, that Ozpin fellow terrified him.

He shook his head. He needed to forget that man as soon as he could, hopefully he would do the same to him.

He was now on the quiet streets just… walking, the city was just now waking up truly, more and more cars appeared on the streets along with people going to work, but they were still in relatively small numbers. Shops were just opening up, changing their signs from "closed" to "open".

He liked this quietness, it allowed him to think on his situation.

First problem was his injury. He honestly had no idea what it was, he heard no mentioning of this kind of wound from his peers during his time in the Order and that unsettled him. He knew 'Soul Steal' was highly experimental and had odd side effects but having a void tendril wrapped around yourself was not one of them last he checked, and there were a lot of possible side effects, bodily malfunctions like blindness, deafness, wrong number of regrown limbs and straight up brain aneurysms just to name few. He knew the risks but desperate times call for desperate measures as they say. He sighed, maybe this was his punishment for playing around with the unknown. He brought up his left arm and regarded the bandage. He frowned and poked at it.

He shuddered as the tendril registered the prodding and wiggled a bit. Corvin's face contorted in disgust at this but he continued his experimentation. He rolled his arm a bit and looked for a slightly protruding part and upon finding one he lightly tugged at it.

He bit back a curse as he suddenly felt like he touched an electric outlet with a fork. It took a few seconds for him to collect himself but then he realized something.

'This damn thing moved around and retreated into my arm!'

The tendril was intelligent, at least at an animalistic level it seemed. It could discern whether it was being attacked or not and act accordingly and seeing as it moved into his arm rather than out it pointed to a grim conclusion.

'I have a parasite inside me, just… just great. And it's quite a large one at that'

The nurses did an x-ray on his unconscientious body and told him before leaving that apart from the black snake thing that went from his left wrist all the way up to his cardiac blood vessels and spread around his heart in a threatening manner he was fine.

Yeah, "fine".

That meant that if he tried to forcibly remove it the parasite would play nutcracker with his heart. It filled him with great amount of joy, having a feet long Void abomination inside himself that could kill him in a second made him all warm and fuzzy inside, he could even feel the butterflies in his stomach.

Oh wait.

He shook his head at the repugnant thought that maybe there really was something squishy in his stomach and decided to think on something else less disturbing.

'Well, let's see… in the last 8 hours I've been interrogated by a demigod in disguise, tried out a controversial technique that caused me to age backwards and further rewarded me with a Void parasite that I won't be able get out and stomp on for quite a while'

"Might as well name you, you little monster" Corvin rolled his arm and regarded it with a thinking look.

"Maybe I'll name you Violet…? No, even I wouldn't insult you that much" he smirked "How about… Night Crawler? Yeah? You're dark as the night and crawl inside me, plus you remind me of that comic character that left black smoke around whenever he teleported" He brought a finger to his lips in thought before smiling.

"What do you think Nighty? Like your new name? One wiggle means yes, one cardiac arrest means no" Corvin smirked at his arm and waited for a response.

…

…

"Considering I'm still talking and not on the ground convulsing I'm guessing I chose right, or maybe it means that you're just too stupid to understand me" He added as an afterthought. "Whatever, just keep sucking… whatever you suck out of me" He furrowed his brows.

His thoughts after this wandered to the elephant in the room. He stopped walking and stood completely still in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a small clothing store. He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice a car parking right beside him. Four shady looking people got out of the vehicle with poorly concealed weapons, two of them walked by him, giving him the stink eye but not bothering him at all as they entered the store.

His hands tightened into white knuckled fists.

"Violet" He muttered with an eye twitch. Suddenly his earlier calm and carefree attitude disappeared completely and was replaced by a semi-tangible dark aura that was created by his Mark acting in accord to his emotions. Its light was barely strong enough to shine through the thick bandage, but it was definitely there. Night Crawler wiggled slightly in discomfort, perhaps it was its host's feelings affecting him as well or maybe it was the Mark agitating the otherworldly creature. Corvin didn't care, his mind was on one thing, and one thing only.

Violet, his own sister, the one who was by his side through thick and thin, who he shared not only blood but mind as well, betrayed him.

Their bond was unique, they told each other everything, their everyday feelings, their darkest secrets, even the top secrets the Order never told its normal members, they didn't care. They trusted each other before anyone else, there were no secrets among the two. They were two against the world for as long as he could remember and it showed in their everyday lives in the Order. They always had each other's backs, no matter what.

Even when they had to choose a guild…

Corvin closed his eyes and took a deep breath, this wasn't the time to reminisce on the past.

But now.

After everything, after a lifetime of taking care of each other she finally walked away and left him alone to die.

She murdered their Grandmaster and mentor in cold blood in front of several members of the High Council and then accused him of said murder, with all present either agreeing or looking away and remaining silent. His heart felt cold at that moment, he had lost almost everything before, to him only Violet remained in the world for a long time and vice versa. Then the impossible happened and they had the opportunity to join the Order. They accepted and suddenly they weren't alone anymore, sure it was rough at first, not every face was friendly but with years and sheer determination the community slowly accepted them and after years of loneliness they finally felt as if they had a new family. They were not alone after so long.

But it had to end with a body slumped on a table with a bloody knife sticking out of its back.

She destroyed everything he worked for and created for years in a single night and robbed him.

She robbed him of his family, his sister, his life…

Back then when they lost their family they at least had each other, now he was alone. He had nothing left, just one thing on his mind.

Revenge.

He didn't know why Violet did what she did, and he didn't want to know. If she was willing to remove him from the equation by blood and steel, then she was not the Violet he grew up with.

And that meant that his sister was dead.

His supposed friends and family just stood and watched as his life fell to pieces like a shattering mirror.

They watched as the Corvin they knew died and spat on his walking corpse.

And for that they would pay, they would suffer and beg for a mercy that he would never give, but most importantly, they would feel what he felt that night.

They would watch as he dismantles their lives, piece by piece, from the bottom to the top, slowly but surely until only they remain and then they will cower away from the shadows as he takes them one-by-one. He will leave the thing that occupied his sister's body last, he will look her in the eyes and take in the terror in them as his sword twists in her heart.

They made one huge mistake in their miserable lives.

Broken and tainted souls don't leave for the afterlife after their deaths, they dwell in the Void for all eternity until their desire for vengeance and justice is fulfilled.

And this wraith was ready to take every step to see its own fulfilled.

"After all, revenge solves everything" He smiled like a predator would at its cornered prey.

Corvin felt he would live up to his now taken away title in these coming months and years.

He made to walk with a new sense of purpose but he was stopped when something grabbed his shoulder.

"What the-?!" "Now listen girl, if you don't pay up right this second this poor fella gets a bullet in his head!" One of the thugs from earlier punched him in the bandaged arm and took him in a choke hold with a pistol pressed against his temple. Corvin was stunned for a second as pain flooded his arm and chest. He waited for his vision to clear up a bit before looking upwards and taking in the situation before him.

The guy who was holding him was not alone, three of his friends were there as well. Two of them were outside, one was by the car leaning against it and smoking a cigarette, the other was standing a few meters away, looking away from the scene to see if there weren't any cops around. Finally one last guy was inside the store next to a terrified store clerk, pointing at Corvin. The poor girl looked like she would pass out from shock at any moment, if her rapid breathing and tearful eyes were any indication.

The initial disorientation faded away quickly and Corvin narrowed his eyes, his mind already focused on the situation at hand. Every one of them had a weapon on them, but only two of them had ranged weapons, the guy holding him at gunpoint and the guy smoking, both of them were only pistols but he wouldn't take any chances, he may have had the arcane working for him, but a bullet was still a bullet. If it hit him it would hurt, a lot. The other two only had red swords? He felt confused as to why they would paint them in such colors but he dismissed that thought as irrelevant at the moment.

"Well, what's it gonna be?" The man inside asked the girl with a shrug. Corvin was going to enjoy impaling him through his big mouth, he brought him into this situation, what would follow now was on his head. His head suddenly jerked to the store and focused on a spot.

"Fuc-!" Corvin cursed as he almost doubled over from the pain suddenly flaring up in his arm. Corvin's attempt to 'Blink' away from his attacker's grasp agitated his parasite and caused it to voice its displeasure.

"Hey! Stay still!" His captor berated him and punched his left arm again, causing Corvin to cry out in pain again. The girl inside looked to be still in shell shock and just watched as Corvin was forcibly straightened up again. The man beside her sighed once and crossed his arms.

"Last chance, on the count of three he loses his head"

"One" He began impatiently.

Corvin's expression turned to one of confusion, why couldn't he use his powers? He could use them just fine last night, right up until the…

'Oh' He grimly realized that maybe the parasite wasn't the only side effect of that cursed technique.

"Two"

But he could still use 'Dark Vision' on Ozpin earlier this morning, albeit with a small amount of pain? 'Hmm, something to look into later' He hummed.

"Thre-!"*Crack-Crack*

With lightning speed Corvin used his right hand to push the pistol away from his head and used the other to grab his own customized pistol and let loose a buckshot into his captor's foot. Not waiting a second he levelled the weapon at the man inside and pulled the trigger. The pellets shattered the window separating the two and impacted the man's weapon hand, severely disfiguring the body part and knocking the sword away.

Corvin then turned around to face the screaming thug holding his shredded foot and kicked him in the midsection with otherworldly strength. The thug flew with surprising speed into his smoking partner by the car and hit him hard enough for both of them to leave an impression in the vehicle behind them.

He wasted no time and turned to his last opponent standing, the man in question got out of his surprise quickly and brought up his sword in a threatening manner. Corvin paid the threat no mind and rushed him. They were mere feet away when the man tried to get a first horizontal slash in but Corvin dropped to the ground and slid under the attack. He stopped right beside him and threaded his right leg between the man's own. He pointed his gun upwards and pulled the trigger.

*Crack*

The thug's weapon hand exploded in a shower of blood and Corvin used his opponent's shock to kick the man with his other leg from the front. With his right leg in the way his knees bent and he fell on his back. Corvin scrambled on top of him and with a heavy punch he hit him in the face. His nose shattered completely from the force behind the attack and knocked him unconscious.

Complete silence befell on the street as every thug was either knocked out cold or was bleeding to death. Corvin enjoyed that silence like the one before it. With a passive face he got to his feet and dusted himself off. Just as he did that he realized that the black and grey robes he wore in the Council Chambers were still on him and that they saw better days.

While 'Soul Steal' healed every injury on his body the same couldn't be said about his clothes. The places where the glass swords stabbed him left large gaping holes with dried blood around them. The worst was the bullet wound on his chest as that had the most time to bleed. He also realized that maybe being in such clothes weren't the most inconspicuous in this urban environment.

He sighed and looked at the store.

'Why not, I needed a change in style anyway' He calmly walked inside the store through the front door as if there weren't any puddles of blood and shattered glass around him. He opened the door and the bell above it chimed in response. He stopped and regarded the store with a finger at his mouth. He thought about something for a minute before turning to the clerk who was still rooted to her place shaking, looking at him with wide eyes. Corvin looked at her with more detail than last time when his mind was still in combat mode, his thought processes were a bit different back then, namely that she was a human, female, had no weapon and was no danger to him at all. Corvin raised an eyebrow at her, she looked normal for a young woman, barely 20 with pale skin and long brown hair but she had one feature that confused the wraith. Corvin had never seen people with cat ears poking out of their heads, not with real ones at least. He stared at her for a couple of seconds then shook his head. It was probably a weird thing he would have to get used to in this world.

"Are you alright?" He asked with a half interested tone. The young woman blinked a couple of times before nodding unsurely.

"A-are you going to be fine?" She asked unsteadily, looking him up and down.

"Oh, don't worry this isn't my blood" Corvin understood her concern and shrugged her question off with a lie.

"May I look around?" He waved his hand around to which the clerk nodded vividly.

"O-of course! Changing room is in the back"

"Thanks" Corvin nodded in appreciation and made towards the men's section before coming to a halt. He had used 'non-lethal' methods to take everyone down and some of them would even survive the next hour and maybe call their friends. He aimed his pistol at the thug who was sprawled on the floor next to him, he probably passed out from shock and pain.

He aimed down at the man and was about to end his life when a thought occurred to him.

He arrived in this world less than a day ago and he was about to kill people already. That was a new record for him. And considering his situation maybe he shouldn't attract attention to himself by murdering his way through every crowd he goes through… for now. And maybe that Ozpin fellow was watching him right now, somehow, and he might not take him reducing the underworld's population well.

Goosebumps formed on Corvin's back at the mention of that person, his character still bothered Corvin.

A few agonizing seconds passed until Corvin let out a deep sigh and holstered his weapon.

"You might want to call an ambulance before all of them bleed out" He called to the girl off handedly and made his way inside the shop. She stared at his passing form before getting her Scroll out with haste.

* * *

"Alright I'll take these" Corvin stated as he place his new clothes on the counter. He then patted his robes for his wallet, he found it quickly and was about to open it when he saw the large hole in it. He frowned and opened it to find that all of his money was ruined.

'Great, turns out that blades and paper don't get along very well, not like I could even pay with trans dimensional money now that I think about it' He sighed mentally and was about to take everything back when the clerk grabbed his arm.

"Wait! It's alright, consider it payment for taking care of those thugs" She said upon seeing the state of his wallet. The panic vanished from her features minutes ago and now she seemed more grateful than anything. Corvin felt a bit unsure at first but then decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and nodded.

"What did they want anyway? It's only morning, it's not like there is anything in the cash register" He asked, mostly to break the uncomfortable atmosphere between the two. The girl's kind smile vanished and she looked away shyly.

"They were enforcers sent by the gang ruling over this part of town, the owner hadn't payed the 'protection' fees for a while and they decided to collect our debt with interest. We've tried to get the police involved but they are stretched thin with all those dust robberies taking place these days"

Corvin nodded silently, he knew how business went in the shadier parts of town. He had the opportunity to observe it firsthand every time he went on assignments and while it left a bitter taste in his mouth he never intervened because that wasn't the reason he was there in the first place and unnecessary confrontations only got in the way of his mission.

Why fight someone else's war when you have one of your own?

"Are you a huntsman?" The girl asked carefully, Corvin blinked away his thoughts and looked at her strangely.

"No?" He had no idea what a huntsman was and he wasn't about to sell himself as one. It was common sense to him, if you want to be an imposter then you should actually know what you're supposed to imitate.

"Oh" She deflated a bit "Then where did you learn to fight like that?" She perked up again.

"My master taught me how to use my arsenal and abilities but I'm mostly self-taught" Corvin shrugged, even without his powers this confrontation was child's play to him. Sure, most Marked Ones would trip on their own feet without their powers but he was taught to adapt to any situation he may encounter, one of those were being robbed of his powers.

She was about to speak up again when sounds of blaring sirens could be heard from the distance.

"I believe that's my cue to leave" He told her quickly and picked up his clothes from the counter. He had a good guess of what she was about to say and he wasn't about to be guilt tripped into helping strangers with their criminal problems. Not waiting for any reply he walked to the front door before he stopped abruptly.

He looked at the knocked out thug on the floor and analyzed him deeply. He did so for a few moments before turning back to the girl who was still behind the counter looking at him with a hopeful expression.

He sighed "What's the name of this gang and where can I find them?" The girl looked at him with a joyful smile.

"They are called the Red Vipers and they operate out of an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district" Corvin nodded and turned to leave "Wait!" He stopped again and looked back at her "Thank you!" She said earnestly. Corvin blinked once before opening the door and leaving, saying nothing.

Once outside he sighed and looked for an alleyway to change attires. Once again people misinterpreted his actions for kindness. He knew that since those thugs failed to extort their money the gang would come back and probably torch the place but he honestly couldn't care less.

He only wanted their names because he believed he would have to spend a good few months in this place to search for that accursed dimensional mirror. It was probably still in the city and what better way to explore a city than through its underworld? It was one of the first things he learned in the field.

If you want to know something about a city, ask the rats.

But this time he would rather shoot first and ask questions later. He would find this gang and steal any information interesting to him. He would only kill them if they made said process any more difficult than he would have liked. He ducked into an alleyway as an ambulance shot past him and began to take off his bloody clothes.

* * *

*Clank*

He threw his pervious clothes in a dumpster and shut its lid, he walked out into the street and dusted his hands off. He walked along the sidewalk for a bit before stopping before a store's front window. He decided that maybe it was time to fully take in the changes to himself before continuing.

He wore grey form fitting pants that still allowed for free movement with black leather boots. He also wore a black shirt under a navy blue, slim overcoat. Its back went down his knees in length while the front ended at his waist. It was opened slightly in the middle to allow the shirt to show. He also tore off the bandages since his arm wasn't injured in the normal sense anyway and replaced it with a long black cloth which he wrapped around his arm and his Mark to hide it from prying eyes. He decided that if people saw that he was injured they would underestimate him and would pay the price accordingly, The only difference between the two was the color and the protection they provided, the white was too noticeable in the dark of the night for his taste and the new material seemed a bit more sturdier, hopefully it would cushion blows to his arms a bit.. His clothes with his definitely out of the ordinary eyes, dark brown, short medium length hair and sharp features made him feel like a freshman once again. He decided he liked his new appearance and noted that he at least looked 18, so he could get wasted with no problem.

He chuckled and turned to walk onwards.

'What now…? I need resources, time and a few acquaintances if possible, I could possibly do without the latter but it never hurts to know a 'could-you-stitch-my-bleeding-arteries-guy' or a gunsmith. Resources could be ticked off once I get myself established in the underworld and time is not really a concern since nobody is actively looking for me' He thought to himself 'I should probably need a base of operations as well… somewhere where I could sleep without worrying if someone would come and blow my head off and somewhere where I could figure out how I could regain my powers. I could maybe take on that gang without them but there is no way in hell I could beat the Order without them…'

He walked with a slow pace until he heard the rumbling of a jet turbine above his head. He looked up and saw what looked like to be a VTOL passing close by and landing some distance away in a building. He stared at the aircraft and then remembered his earlier conversation with the Headmaster of a certain academy.

"I never thought I would willingly become a freshman again"

He broke into a wolfish grin and jubilantly made his way towards flight terminal 4. When Ozpin made the offer Corvin believed it to be a deal with the devil. He still believed that, but he thought that maybe Ozpin hadn't thought hard enough about who was the bigger devil in the room. He probably had plans with Corvin but Corvin was going to take advantage of the situation regardless. And if he got in the way of his revenge…

Well then he would learn how he got his title in the first place.

* * *

 _And there goes Alice the wolf down the rabbit hole that is Remnant. I think from what you witnessed this chapter you guys realized that maybe Corvin isn't the best of heroes morality wise and I have to agree with you, his moral compass right now is broken, if it even existed in the first place, and he will need time to decide on his path, after all that is the basis of Dishonored; the choices the character makes during the story influences the world around them greatly. Carefree murder leads to chaos while discrete actions and caution helps to maintain order in the world. I modeled Corvin's clothes and appearance after Emily from Dishonored 2 if you didn't figure it out from my description, albeit with a masculine touch I guess._

 _Until next time._


	3. Chapter 3

_Hello there I'm The Royal Protector and you're reading the third chapter of Honor For All. Last time we've seen Corvin set off on his quest for revenge, his first decision was to fly under the radar as much as he could until he had the means to strike back at the Order._

 _This chapter contains no action as it is mostly character development and interaction focused, the next one or two chapters will be different as initiation begins then, meaning that if you want to see Corvin being let loose you're going to have to wait for the chapter after this one._

 _Guest: Ozpin's power level was a conscientious decision by me and it will be elaborated on next chapter, but don't worry, it won't really affect the story. As for being de-powered and de-aged, yeah I'll just straight up admit that if I left Corvin at his maximum he would steamroll 95% of the RWBY cast in under a second. Seriously, Time Dilation is one of the most overpowered abilities ever, granted he can't stop time all together but he can still outmaneuver almost anyone. The only people who could stop him then would be maybe the big baddies, Ozpin(?), the Maidens and the Branwen twins. He's still way above the students in skill and experience and it will show, right now I would place him on the level of a full-fledged Huntsman. However he would have trouble dealing with veteran Huntsmen._

 _In short he will get his powers back, but not for a bit. I just don't want to write a Gary Sue that's all._

 _Finally, being de-aged, that was for him to get in the school in the first place. I have a few plans that require him to be a student but this won't be the situation forever._

 _animeandgamerlover2: Thanks, I don't aim to disappoint._

 _Oh, also updated the first chapter because I completely forgot that I wrote it in first person. Not much changed, I just fixed it so it's in third person._

 _So leave a review, follow and favorite if you feel like it, it really helps if I know someone reads these._

' _Thoughts'_

" _Speech"_

 _*Sounds*_

 _Enjoy:)_

 _Disclaimer: RWBY and Dishonored are not my property, the only thing I own are my OCs._

* * *

 **Chapter 3: The Raven's Perch**

'Hmm, Vale is one large city' Corvin noted as he looked out the window of the airship. He stood cross armed, leaning on the frame of the window with a bunch of newspapers in one hand. He decided that since he was for all intents and purposes trapped in this strange world he might as well learn about it as much as possible. With that in mind he took every newspaper he found interesting; about Vale, Beacon, and the world at large.

He gazed outside and regarded the sprawling city with a small amount of awe. It really was a metropolis, he could see the gargantuan skyscrapers in the distance and thousands of small blurs going along the streets in an orderly chaos. They were currently passing over one of the residential districts where the grey of buildings dispersed slightly to give space to some green.

He looked away from that scene disinterestedly, sure it was beautiful and all that but he was looking for something in particular…

'There you are' He noted in satisfaction when he caught sight of plumes of smoke ascending from large chimneys. The industrial district was located in the western part of the city, right along the coastline along with the docks and the port. He looked at a map in one of the papers and confirmed the general layout of the city. He was interested in those areas because that was the most likely place where he would spend the coming nights. Smugglers thrived in harbors and train stations, or the professional ones at least, while old and unused buildings in a low civilian traffic area such as the industrial district were hotbeds for crime. He would steer clear of the commercial district though, that's where most of the big fish swam, and he didn't want to stir up trouble with them if he could. Too much risk with too little gain. Not that he thought they could hunt and kill him if he somehow offended their mothers or something, it was more akin to having an annoying mosquito buzzing around your ear all the time, just switch the mosquito with the laser sight of a sniper rifle and you get the idea.

He looked at the interior and noted that everyone was as glued to the windows as he was. There were a couple dozen people present at least, and they conversed with each other in excited tones, quite loudly he might add. He sighed, he missed the silence. Silence helped him to sort through his disorderly thoughts, which he had many.

Earlier a 3D representation of the riding crop wielding woman appeared before the crowd and welcomed the students to Beacon academy, he supposed it was either an illusion or a hologram, depending on the world's mastery in either technology or the arcane. She talked about how they were supposed to become warriors in peacetime under Beacon's guidance and commended them on their bravery and selfless spirit in deciding to choose this life.

Corvin understood the need for peacekeepers, because he knew that peace and order were fragile things and they must be fought for at all times but he couldn't not notice the number of first years just beside him.

There were around two dozen people in his corridor alone, and the ship was large. He guessed that there were around 70 to 80 people on the aircraft, and there were more airships besides this one.

So the question appeared in Corvin's head; what kind of enemy were they expecting to fight if they trained a company's worth of 'peacekeepers' every year? Not even the Order, as large as it was, trained people that fast, although the argument could be made that the in-training mortality rates didn't help much with that statistic.

"Look! There's Beacon!" A person called out suddenly, Corvin perked up at this and glanced back out again.

"That should do for a base" He muttered and raised an impressed eyebrow. The academy complex was gigantic, Dozens of dorms and sections were scattered around one central spire that towered above every other building he saw so far in this world. He could see open air training fields and normal sport facilities scattered around the edges with big open spaces between them. The environment wasn't anything to scoff at either, to the east were large mountains that blocked access to the complex, to the north and south were two forests with different color patterns, one was black and red while the other was a more normal green and brown, lastly to the west laid a large lake that was separated by a high cliff at the edge of the school.

Corvin allowed himself a smile as he reminisced on the first time he first laid eyes upon the halls of the High Castle. He and Violet probably earned a few odd looks from their fellow members that day, but it was understandable seeing as they went through every corridor with slacked jaws.

His smile however soon vanished when a blonde boy went rushing past him trying to keep his stomach's contents to himself. The boy failed spectacularly and emptied his stomach near a pair of girls, who squealed in disgust. The sight made him frown and scoff.

"Exceptionally gifted warriors my ass" Corvin muttered.

* * *

"Well Nighty, at least the place seems nice" Corvin patted his arm and looked around with a passive face. Around him his fellow students were disembarking and checking their luggage. He himself had nothing to carry so he just walked past everyone and decided to check out something. He sat down on a nearby bench with his newspaper open and activated 'Dark Vision'. He winced in pain but the paper hid his features so people didn't notice his discomfort. It also hid his glowing eyes from public view.

He pretended to read deeply while in reality he analyzed the others. Thanks to Dark Vision he could see living things through obstacles such as walls, smoke and water and he abused that greatly. He regarded each person for a bit before moving on to the next. The eyes only provided the silhouette of a person, not the features but he was only checking their Void affinity for now, if they had any in the first place. He had been doing this for a while and the only oddity he found was that their souls were a lot brighter than the usual. If a regular person was like a matchstick than these people were like a stadium floodlight. He had to actually squint a few times because some of their souls shined too bright for his taste. He was not sure about the how but he had a good guess about the why as to this anomaly.

Every world had its quirks thanks to some higher being pulling some strings here and there. It was how things went, some random god would find itself in a random empty universe and shape it to its will with the power of the Void. Said god had no idea he was using the Void to accomplish anything but went ahead and did things anyway, creating a world, life, humans and some sort of magic he could use to validate and maintain his crazy creations. The god or gods after this leave or just can't be bothered to do anything or sometimes they stick around and look over their creation. Sometime later the inhabitants of the world discover said magic and use it to their own accord. It was an age old story and it happened every time and everywhere, it wasn't anything new to the Order.

However what mattered was that the created magic was not connected directly to the Void, thus making it useless in any other world. Void powers had no such limitations fortunately. A good comparison would be like trying to use programs designed for one operational system on another one. Best case scenario it didn't work and that's it, other times it damaged the hardware itself and bigger problems appeared. Meanwhile the Void was like the base electrons that made up the computer. You thought of something and it did it, no questions. It was universal and couldn't be overridden, not even by a creator god itself. That was the Order's biggest advantage in any world they ventured into. If a Marked One had the ability to control the wind and another native had the same ability and they tried to overpower each other it would always end up with the Marked One gaining the upper hand and demolishing the other person, simply because the Marked One's Void powers overrode any other power in the same category.

Theoretically that meant that a Marked One could even go toe to toe with a creator god since they had the same access to the Void, but that was never put into practice because everyone was afraid of a domino effect. Theory and practice were two different things, even gods agreed on that, that's why the two groups never really interacted with each other aside from the most basic communication. If a Marked One defeated a creator god then word would spread around both groups and a mutual fear would appear in both camps. The creator gods would fear this new existential threat to them and the Order would be wary of the moment the gods thought they could end their threat once and for all. Only a single spark would be necessary for a war to break out on a scale never before seen, worse than that, no one was sure who would come out on top in such scenario. That's why no one sane wanted to answer that question, ignorance in this case was the bliss that kept the peace.

He searched the crowd further when he noticed the boy he saw on the ship threw up into a trashcan, again. Corvin sighed and mentally palmed his face, if this school trained fighters like the Order did then that boy would die in the first two minutes.

And he wasn't exaggerating, his training was brutal and more than one of his mates died during sessions.

He decided to move along but he did a double take when he saw black smoke in a sea of blinding white. He squinted his eyes and tried to isolate it… it belonged to a girl who just came out of the airship.

He hummed, blinked away his glowing eyes and lowered his newspaper.

"Well, if that isn't a nice surprise" He noted sarcastically. It was that scythe girl from yesterday, he mentally groaned, he was going to meet everyone again, wasn't he? If that's so he wanted to meet the crazy fire chick again. Their last match was cut short and he wanted some payback for his robes.

He liked those robes.

But his expression turned to a curious one 'Why do you have something that no one else has… aside from Ozpin and that fire chick. Hmm I should name her, 'fire psycho bitch' gets old really quick… whatever, I'll come up with something later'.

Corvin watched her talk with another blonde girl before taking out that oversized scythe and wielded as if it was made out of cardboard. Now that he realized, everyone was openly carrying around their weapons. He felt uncomfortable at that but didn't dwell on it for long before deciding that it was time he made himself scarce.

He tossed the newspaper in the trash and looked at a nearby map board for directions. He was supposed to attend a year opening speech in the main auditorium an hour from now and he didn't want to be late because he lost himself. He committed the layout of the place to memory and left. He passed by the Void marked girl. She seemed to recognize him and was about call out to him when she tripped on something and yelped. Corvin walked on as if nothing happened, yes he needed acquaintances but he seriously doubted that a little kid could help him much, Void gifted or not.

* * *

He walked by the central fountain in a brisk pace until he decided that it was quiet enough for his liking. He went to sit down on a nearby bench when he stopped cold. He heard the distant sound of an explosion and his mind went into combat mode.

He unfolded his sword and held it in a reverse grip with his right hand while grabbing his pistol as well. He looked around himself frantically for any sign of trouble, there wasn't anyone near him or the fountain itself, he noted to himself. He continued his search for almost a minute before deciding that it was probably an accident with some ammunition or grenades. With a nod to himself he put away his weapons and relaxed his posture a bit.

'I probably have a good few minutes still…' He thought and glanced around then looked at his covered Mark 'What am I going to do with you?' He hummed in thought.

'I should see how bad the damage is… let's see how many techniques I can do…' Corvin turned around and walked to a few trees a bit farther away from the pavement.

He stopped next to a tree and placed his hand on it 'Let's try something simple' he thought and coated his right hand in Void tendrils in the classical 'Far Reach' technique and punched the tree as hard as he could.

*Crack*

Wood splintered and creaked under the power of the punch and Corvin's hand burrowed itself wrist deep into the wood. He flinched and recalled the tendrils. He removed his hand and rolled his stiffened wrist, he looked up at the damage he caused and nodded in approval.

He then looked up at a particularly high branch and crouched down. He suddenly shot up a dozen feet in the air and gently touched the branch before gravity took over and he landed back in place.

'It seems my passive abilities are working as well as before, that makes strength, agility and senses' He noted before looking at his Mark with furrowed brows, the punch itself didn't hurt him, however the summoning of the tendrils did. He thought about it before deciding on something a bit more energy taxing, he took in a deep breath and turned up Time Dilation to the slowest he could.

"Mother-!" For a moment Corvin saw the color leave his vision and the fountain's water stop midair but not a second later his arm flared up with an intensity that rivaled yesterday night's. He collapsed on the spot and clutched at his heart as he felt something strangling the arteries that went into his heart. He gasped for air as his body tried to get more oxygen in his blood in vain. He trashed around on the ground for a whole minute before his world started to darken. The pain caused by Nighty moving in his arm never receded and he was about to black out when it all suddenly stopped.

He panted heavily on the ground as his blood flow slowly returned to normal and Nighty returned to its normal state.

He slowly got up to a sitting position and swept away the sweat he worked up during his trashing.

"Lesson learned… Time Dilation is a big no-no for Nighty" He breathed heavily "You're not the most helpful of parasites, you know that right?" He continued, trying to get his bearings. He stood up unsteadily.

"Okay… maybe something less intense…" He turned to look up at the tree he punched. He focused on a branch that seemed thick enough to hold something his size and Blinked on it. It worked this time, unlike last time with the thugs he didn't double over and remained standing.

'It still hurt a lot… like if someone stabbed a fork into my arm… still not great but I've had worse' He inspected his arm closely. By now he was sure that he still had his powers but it seemed Nighty didn't like the Void and voiced its displeasure every time.

He lost himself in his thoughts for a while before realizing something. He rolled up his sleeve and removed the black cloth from around his arm.

He saw some parts of Nighty sticking out of his skin, it was disgusting to say the least but interestingly Corvin didn't even feel that it was where it was. He looked at Nighty for a bit before noticing something "huh? You got a bit discolored there buddy" He voiced his thoughts.

True to his words Nighty seemed to have lighter colored spots on its 'skin' like someone went over it with an eraser and allowed the white underneath to show.

"You weren't like this last time, what changed…? Maybe If I…" He began to say and activated Dark Vision and to his surprise he didn't feel any pain. He blinked away his glowing eyes and looked at his arm, the paler spot on Nighty's skin expanded a bit.

He had another idea.

He poked the completely black part of Nighty and it recoiled into his arm, causing fair amount of pain. He then did the same with the paler part and… nothing happened. The parasite didn't even register his finger. He frowned and took out his blade, he expanded it and poked the thing hard enough to pierce its outer layer. Nighty finally reacted and a smaller tendril sot out of the main one, grabbing his sword and yanking it out of his hand with enough force that when it hit the tree it stuck in it so deep that only the hilt remained visible. The tendril retreated into his arm and Nighty's injured pale skin regenerated before his eyes.

Corvin broke into a wide smirk then began laughing.

"I figured it out" He declared and went to collect his sword, he yanked it out with a mighty heave and collapsed it. He put it away and sat down against the tree with one of his feet dangling.

'There was nothing wrong with my Mark, it was Nighty all along. He is still probably young and sensible to Void energies and other outside stimuli. His black skin is young and probably feels like sunburnt skin for a human, overly sensible and hurting, However once his skin absorbs enough Void powers from my Mark during use his skin matures into its adult form. Then he really only attacks if he feels truly in danger. He's probably so used to the energy signature of Dark Vision that it doesn't bother him anymore'

Corvin breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to regain his powers.

Now he needed to make sure it happened as soon as possible. He rewrapped his arm and rolled down his sleeve. He took out a newspaper from one of his pockets and began reading it while he focused on his Mark. He didn't use any kind of technique, he was just bleeding off energy from his Mark in order agitate Nighty. Nighty responded as expected and began to wiggle in pain and discomfort, making Corvin hurt a bit.

He was going to condition Nighty in order to regain his strength, and probably raise his pain tolerance by a good amount.

He didn't know how long it would take for Nighty to mature enough for him to use his powers but he felt that he was on the right track.

Corvin smiled, his revenge was just one step closer.

* * *

"Hey, where are we going?" Ruby asked suddenly.

"Oh! I don't know, I was following you" Jaune admitted sheepishly. The pair looked around themselves, sighing in realization that they got lost right before the year opening speech was about to begin.

"You think there might be a directory? Maybe a food court? Some sort of recognizable landmark?" Jaune began listing possibilities to which Ruby giggled in response.

"Uh, is that a no?" Jaune deflated a bit.

"That's a no" Ruby confirmed with a smile, then looked around herself, searching for something she could recognize. She had no such luck and was about to call it there that they were officially lost when she caught sight of someone sitting atop of a tree reading something. She decided that it was worth a shot and looked at Jaune.

"Come on, maybe that person can help us" She informed Jaune in her usual cheery tone.

"Yeah, let's hope" He nodded and they made their way over to the tree and person in question. Once there Ruby noticed that there was a fist sized hole in the tree and wondered whether if it was Yang that did that. She looked up and found the person still engrossed in a newspaper. She wondered why someone would read on top of a tree of all places but she didn't voice it.

"Um, hello? Could you help us?" She asked hesitantly, the person didn't even bother to look away from what he was reading when he replied.

"That depends. I'm a bit busy at the moment" He responded disinterestedly while flipping a page. A tinge of nervousness shot through Ruby's heart when she heard his tone and her socially awkward side took over.

"Well, you see me and my friend were deep in our talk when we noticed that we had no idea where we were, which is odd because I always know where I am because my father and sister always told me that when I become a huntress then I would have to take care of myself and those around me and what kind of huntress gets lost anywhere, right? And now look at us, first day in school and we are about to be late for the opening spee-" She startled rambling but the man cut her off, she looked up and saw that he put aside his papers and was looking directly at her.

"Did you just say that we are about to be late for the speech?" He kind of seemed familiar to her in a weird way. She regarded him for a bit then she suddenly made the connection.

"Uhm, yeah" She replied unsurely. The guy sighed and threw away the newspaper entirely and then-

"Ah! What was that?!" She yelped when she felt something rush past her and blow wind in her face. She and Jaune looked up to see that the man disappeared entirely, they looked around confusedly and saw that he was a few feet behind them looking at them with expectant eyes.

"Well, you're coming or what?"

"Whoa, was that your semblance?" Jaune asked with an awed look, even Ruby had to admit, he was fast.

"My sembl-what?" He said completely deadpan.

"You're that guy from the rooftop fight yesterday, right?" Ruby asked him suddenly. She had seen him fight that woman and was amazed at how quick he was able to move and deflect attacks, he was as fast as Uncle Qrow!

"And you're that scythe wielding girl, right?" He replied in kind, she felt at a loss at what to say. She wanted to ask so many questions but she didn't know how to start. They remained silent for a bit, it was uncomfortable for every one present, especially for the socially awkward reaper. Thank dust Jaune decided to break the ice.

"Uhm, am I missing something here? Do you know each other?" He asked, pointing between the two.

"Not really, we just sort of met in passing last night" He shrugged and began walking towards what she guessed was the auditorium. They fell in step beside him and Ruby began bombarding him with questions.

"How did you do any of those moves?! Where did you learn to fight like that? What's your semblance? Are you a Huntsman? What kind of weapon do you use? Can I see it?!" She rambled again, completely missing the guy looking quite uncomfortable with her.

"Whoa, easy there! Take a breath, I'm ready to answer any questions you have, just calm down" He tried to calm Ruby down. She nodded and breathed in and out in a comically adorable way.

"Alright, firstly my name is Corvin, Corvin Halden and no, I'm not a Huntsman, I'm just a first year like you. I don't know why everyone says that" He muttered the last part barely above a whisper but Ruby still caught it.

"Hi, I'm Ruby, Ruby Rose" She cheerily pointed to herself "Jaune, Jaune Arc, nice to meet you" Jaune followed up with a friendly wave.

"Alright, first question?" Corvin asked in a resigned tone and Ruby knew what she would choose to ask immediately.

"Can I see your weapon?!" She asked excitedly, Corvin stopped for a second and blinked once with a straight expression on his face, he shook his head and then hesitantly nodded. He took out a metal cylinder twice the length of her fist with metal outcroppings on one end, also the middle part of the metal seemed to be covered in wood and leather. He pressed a button on its side and flipped the expanding blade in the air before catching it with a finesse that required years of training. He then handed her the weapon.

"Oh. My. Gosh. Is that an expandable folding sword?!" Ruby squealed with unrestrained glee. She took the weapon out of the offered hand with a speed that surprised Corvin and left behind several rose petals.

"It's amazing Jaune! The mechanism works on the same principle as your shield but it's been miniaturized to fit into the handle of a sword! Everyone thinks it's just a piece of metal then swoosh it folds out to full length and the outcroppings become sharpened handguards!" She was geeking out over the weapon by this point "The blade is so light I can barely feel it! And the edge looks sharp enough to cut other metals! What is it made of?" She jerked up to look at Corvin with sparkling eyes while the other two looked on in surprised expressions at her antiques, Jaune saw it before hand and was somewhat ready for this but Corvin wasn't in the slightest.

"Uhm, as far as I know the blade itself was made of some rare, physically conditioned steel alloy but I'm not sure. The edges as far as I know are coated in micro diamonds" He tried to recall everything about the weapon he learned from the High Castle's blacksmith.

"What do you mean by as far as you know? You didn't make it?" Ruby asked confusedly, it was the second time she got to ask that question that day.

"No, it was a gift from… a good friend of mine, it was a family heirloom of theirs. It's really old, hundreds of years old if I remember correctly. It hadn't been tempered with apart from the diamond coating in all that time" Corvin shrugged uneasily.

"I can relate to that" Jaune commented with a smile. The boy suddenly felt better by knowing that he wasn't the only one who didn't make their own weapon in all of Beacon.

"I like it!" Ruby cheered happily and handed the weapon back to Corvin. He collapsed it and tucked it back into his coat. He then pulled out his pistol and showed it to Ruby.

"You have a pistol too? Most people only focus on one transforming weapon and that's it" She looked at him questioningly, but nevertheless took the gun and checked it out.

"In my experience it's never a good thing to rely on one weapon only, what if it breaks or malfunctions in the middle of combat? You'll be left with no weapon and you can't use any other left in the field because you've never trained with them" Corvin reasoned to which Ruby and Jaune reluctantly nodded.

"So anything special about that?" Jaune cautiously pointed to the revolver-flintlock hybrid weapon.

"Well, the base was a regular a flintlock from where I came from, but with all the modifications I've made it's nowhere near what it was once, I don't know how to categorize it really. A single handed elephant gun would be the closest description" Ruby rotated the pistol in her hands and she had to agree, she had never seen such a complicated pistol with this large caliber. Most people would just abandon the pistol format entirely because the kickback would break their wrist. She probably could fire it without much trouble because of her Aura but it would still leave her hand sore.

"It was pretty archaic when I first got it and I honestly wanted to replace it with something more modern and overall useful" He admitted with a sidelong glance at the weapon as they walked.

"Why didn't you get a new one then?" Jaune asked confusedly, people hadn't used flintlocks in a century, and for good reason. Ruby however had an understanding look on her face.

"This weapon must mean a lot to you" She half asked, half stated.

"I… I have a lot of memories attached to this pistol" Corvin admitted uneasily with a longing look.

"I get it, it's pretty much the same with my sniper-scythe, Crescent Rose. There may be more effective weapons out there, but I would never abandon my baby" She smiled and patted the weapon on her back "So, what did you do with it? It certainly looks different" She asked curiously.

"Well. I turned to a good blacksmith friend of mine and took a look at what could be done to it. The result was a bit surprising, but in a good sense. We replaced every wooden part with either some kind of metal or a polymer and forgone the entire firing mechanism and replaced it with a chambered revolver like design. I needed something with a lot of stopping power so we decided to keep the original larger caliber barrel and used downgraded shells from an elephant gun as ammo. After a few minor modifications I left the design in his hands and got a pistol that kicks like a rifle and hurts like a shotgun" Corvin told them. Meanwhile Ruby was wondering if she could ask the name of his friend, he seemed as into guns as her at least and maybe she could run a few ideas by him. Corvin seemed like a nice person as well, once he stopped being mean to her that is. At least she wasn't like that Weiss girl from earlier, who was hell bent on giving her a mouthful.

"So, what are they called?" She asked him with a smile, Corvin however just looked at her oddly.

"Why would they have names? They are just weapons"

"They are an extension of ourselves! They serve us loyally for years upon years and save us from any harm! They deserve the right to have a name" She defended hastily. Corvin looked on in thought.

"Hmm, maybe you're right. These things saved me more times than I can count" He hummed "I have no idea what to name them though" He admitted.

"Well, usually names come to you after the hours and hours of work you put into forging the weapon itself, but it isn't uncommon to name them after the original user or the person who had given it to us" She explained while handing back the pistol to Corvin. He took out the folded sword and expanded it.

"… Attano…" He said after a couple of seconds of looking at the weapon. He then looked at the pistol with a pained expression.

"… Violet…"

"Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!" She suddenly heard her sister's voice call to her. She jumped in place and looked around herself.

'We're here already? Huh, time flies' She thought and looked to her companions.

"Oh! Hey I gotta go! I'll see you guys after the ceremony!" She said quickly and ran to her sister.

"Hey, wait! Great, where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?" Jaune sighed in resignation then turned to Corvin "At least I still got you Cor- oh come on!" He whined when he saw that Corvin all but disappeared from where he stood.

* * *

As soon as Ruby ditched them Corvin followed suit almost immediately and disappeared into the crowd. He circled a bit in the crowd before coming back to the entrance. It was a bad habit he picked up years ago. He was always close to an exit in closed spaces. He monitored the flow of people subconsciously and looked for anything out of the ordinary with a hand always near his blade. He shook his head and forcibly removed his twitching arm from the handle of his sword.

'It's okay Corvin, it's not the black market, it's just a school ceremony' He quietly reassured himself and moved to an empty spot near the wall next to the exit. His paranoia served him well during assignments, saved him from death a good few times as well but now it was just getting in the way of his mental well-being.

"Ahem… I'll keep this brief" He perked up his head at the familiar voice and immediately narrowed his eyes. It was the person who was partially responsible for his recent pent up anger.

'Of course the Headmaster would start the semester' Corvin chuckled to himself and regarded the man standing on the podium. He seemed a bit different from the last time they'd met. He discreetly activated Dark Vision, which he happily noted no longer agitated Nighty and noticed something interesting.

His Void signature was a slight bit weaker than before, in fact if it wasn't Corvin who was inspecting the man others wouldn't even catch it. In his line of work dissecting an opponent before a confrontation was almost as important as the fighting itself, it was because of this he was forced to learn every little detail about a potential enemy. He became very meticulous even compared to his colleagues, it sometimes earned him odd looks but nobody questioned his results in a profession where it was generally a coin flip whether or not you survived an encounter. Something was amiss this time though.

'People normally don't lose their connection to the Void at this rate. It's either you have it or suddenly you don't, there's no in between, unless…'

"You have travelled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished you plan to dedicate your life to the people. But I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy, in need of direction, of purpose. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will only prove that knowledge can only carry you so far"

"It is up to you, to take the first step" He ended his speech and quietly moved away from the stage. Not a heartbeat later the blonde woman from earlier, who's name Corvin had found out earlier to be Glynda Goodwitch took his place and addressed the murmuring crowd.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight, tomorrow your initiation begins, be ready! You are dismissed" She finished up quickly and the crowd descended into confused conversations amongst the students. Corvin huffed in approval of the first years' welcoming. He could remember his initiation ceremony like it was yesterday and compared to Ozpin's blunt, yet sobering speech it was much more disheartening. Their late Grandmaster held a similar speech but it was a bit more… Nihilistic. The yet to be Marked Ones were as confused as these students now but they soon learned that every word their Grandmaster said was true.

The first deaths occurred not a day later.

He quietly walked out of the loudly conversing crowd and patted his pockets for another newspaper, finding none he looked at a nearby map board.

"Hmm, I should head to the library, they probably have every book about the world worth having" He declared and made his way towards the building in question.

He would ponder on Ozpin's situation later, he had an idea of what happened to him and it irritated Corvin to no end, but he would withhold his judgement until he found further evidence to his claim.

* * *

"Hmm, this world has some interesting quirks" Corvin flipped a page in his book. The librarian was kind enough to show him around the different sections once he expressed his interest in any kind of technical book. At first he didn't know where to start because the different voices in his head all wanted something else. His inner historian wanted to divulge in the biographies of great people and retelling of events while other parts wanted to know more about recent events and cultural must-knows. He finally settled on the supernatural aspects, he wanted to know if his powers were normal here or if they would draw attention to himself. So he got a book titled Aura and Semblance: Mirrors of our Souls and he hadn't put it down all afternoon. He found out that neither of his earlier assumptions were fully right. Supernatural abilities were common enough here that instead of the usual 'pitchforks and torches' response you only got a raised eyebrow. That made Corvin relax a bit, he never liked the former scenario.

However there was a catch, people usually only had one supernatural ability, two was not unheard of but it was still rare. He was in a bit of a pickle there.

He did a mental check and counted at least two dozen powers he had mastered to at least a proficient level.

'That wasn't going to fly well' He sourly thought. According to the book these special abilities were called Semblances and derived from a person's Aura. 'Aura is the physical representation of a person's soul, it can be used to quicken reflexes, enhance senses, protect oneself and heal rapidly. It is present in all living organisms but only sentient species can unlock its potential' He mentally quoted the book.

'Basically the Jack of all trades in terms of abilities'

He could get away with two abilities as his 'Semblance' at most, and that was pushing it. After thinking on it long and hard Corvin chose Blink and Possession as his abilities to use before the public eye. Weren't he limited by Nighty he would have chosen Time Dilation over Possession but his hands were tied in that regard. Nevertheless he was satisfied with his choices, Blink was his bread and butter alongside Time Dilation, it was versatile as it could be used both for stealth and combat, plus it was an energy efficient he could use for prolonged amounts of time before tiring himself out.

Possession was likewise very useful, he had no idea if Aura made people immune to its effects but he could still use it on animals if it turned out people around here were mind-hijack resistant. He was going to use it whether or not Nighty agreed with him, it was a useful ability and was a step below Time Dilation in terms of energy consumption.

Also his trademark basically required the ability, so there was that.

His biggest headache was Aura itself.

The root of the problem was that he was 100% sure he didn't have any, and Semblances required Aura to work in the first place. Aura was a thing unique to this world, no other world had it, something similar, yes, but not quite. This meant that it was made for this world only by this world's deity or deities. As an outsider he was like a person poking a fish tank.

His Mark was a conduit to the Void and made him abide by a different rule set.

It made him immune to any lingering base effects a world might have that would contradict the user's home world's base rules. Like if he were to go to a world where all humans were subject to a magic spell that made them dumb as rocks he wouldn't be effected at all because it was not the case in his home world. It was like a bubble was erected around him all the time that protected him against the world around him.

A world's physics and 'active' magic used by its inhabitants could still kill him however. It was because of the former that the Order never went to a world where there were more than three dimensions and such. It was just plain impossible for them to exist there normally.

The only exception to the 'magical base effects immunity' was if the magic in question was derived from the Void. The Void was the base of all worlds and as such had an overruling effect over everything, if the Void said that this world's inhabitants are cursed with magically appearing eye tumors then he couldn't do much about it and he would grow one as well.

In essence someone could try to awaken his Aura but thanks to his Mark it would achieve absolutely nothing.

Which caused the problem of having to explain why he didn't one, since he read that everything that had a soul had one.

He had been called a lot of things, but soulless wasn't one of them.

So, Corvin did what he did best; he improvised.

He was sitting with his back to the wall on the ballroom floor, he was still reading that book leisurely. All around him his fellow students were about to call it a day and get some sleep before tomorrow, Corvin didn't bother to change however, he decided he wasn't going to sleep tonight and forgone the entire before-bed process. He instead sat down in a relatively quiet spot and read all evening. He was joined sometime down the line by a black haired girl in his silent solitude. She plopped down beside him without a word and opened her own book, Corvin raised an eyebrow but made no comment.

He had an idea.

It was his firm belief that if you wanted to be a good imposter you should actually know what you're supposed to imitate.

It took him all evening but he finally got down every point he needed.

Aura granted heightened senses, like his Mark. Aura granted greater strength, like his Mark. Aura quickened healing processes, like his Mark. The only thing Aura did that his Mark couldn't was provide protection against harm.

It was a big problem for Marked Ones, most were glass cannons that could die from one bullet to the head. He was one of those people but if he was right that might change soon.

He put down the book and concentrated on his hidden Mark, thinking of the desired effect.

He spent at least an hour before a black and white energy field rippled from his hand to every segment of his body before fading away as if it hadn't been there in the first place.

Corvin allowed himself a genuine smile, his plan worked.

Technique creation wasn't one of his strong suits but he nevertheless did it. He made his very own, unique protective force field. It was crude beyond words and he could literally feel his energy being sapped away by just trying to maintain it but he did it. It felt like wet tissue paper and it probably was just as effective against attacks but he could work out the kinks, he had an entire night until initiation after all.

'Oh, tradition dictates that I name a new technique' He reminded himself of some of his former colleagues in the Academia and their reaction if they found out he didn't name it as soon as he had the chance. He pondered about it for a while before coming to a satisfying conclusion.

"Void Shroud" He mouthed wordlessly.

"~Helloo!~" An intentionally high pitched voice interrupted his and his silent partner's thought processes "I believe you three may know each other?" it was that blonde girl who was with that little redhead down by the landing pads. She was dragging said redhead after her and was waving at him and the girl beside him. The pair looked at each other with a raised eyebrow, they haven't spoken a word to each other all evening, they were content with just reading in silence.

"Aren't you the girl that exploded?" She looked back at the pair and asked unsurely.

"Wait, that explosion was you?" Corvin asked at hearing that. Ruby was trying her best to look as small as possible, with little success.

"Yes, it was me…. My name is Ruby…. but, you can just call me… crater-…" She scratched the back of her neck awkwardly "Actually, you can just call me Ruby" She looked a bit embarrassed at the end.

"Okay?" Corvin remained silent as he observed the uncomfortable exchange, the pair of girls whispered loudly between themselves but Corvin found his book more interesting.

'By the Outsider, I forgot how teenagers act with new people…' He mentally palmed his face 'Ruby is anti-social as hell, blonde girl is the outgoing, carefree type and my reading partner is an emo loner… Yeah, this conversation is a complete catastrophe….'

"So, emo reading partner beside me, do you have a name?" Corvin decided to break the iceberg in the proverbial water and help out this three. The girl in question glared at him for a second before answering.

"Blake, Blake Belladonna. What about you, 'guy who thinks he's better'? She snapped back with good amount of sass.

"Corvin Halden" He didn't back down from a challenge and the two glared at each other, neither of them backing down until a certain blonde spoke up.

"Sooo, I'm Yang, Ruby's older sister! I like your bow! They go well with your… pajamas!" She waved over Blake "And your eyes are cool! Really unique, yeah" She said awkwardly. The two broke off their staring contest and raised amused eyebrows at her.

"Is this how you flirt?" Corvin asked with an amused smile. Yang's eyes widened with realization and surprise at what she had said.

"No- I'm-" "So, what are you guys reading?" Yang began to say before Ruby cut her off.

"Nothing interesting, sadly" Corvin showed his book to the girls "I wanted to learn more about Aura but this book is so dry it's a fire hazard in the summer" He stated semi-seriously and an understanding look appeared on Yang's face.

"So that's why you've been messing around with your Aura this last hour?" Blake asked him. Corvin smiled internally, it seemed his technique has passed a first glance test.

"Yeah, I wanted to try something I've been wanting to for some time. What about you? You haven't put down that book for the last two hours" Corvin pointed out.

"… It's about a man with two souls, each fighting for control over his body" She hesitantly explained the main conflict of the book.

"They have a drastically different outlook on the world and they want to change the many wrongs of it. They realize the only way they could act was through their host body, but because of their differing morals they constantly fought each other for what they believed was right" To everyone's surprise Ruby cut in and continued Blake's explanation.

"But in the end through their battle they find out they're not that different from each other and come to understand the other's viewpoint. They realized that if they continued to fight over the body they would never achieve anything, so they agreed to help each other in any way they could, eventually the two souls became one and successfully changed their world for the better… How did you know that?" Blake finished the tale and eyed Ruby with a ghost of a smile.

"I love books" She smiled sheepishly "Yang used to read to me every night before bed. Stories of heroes and monsters… they are one of the reasons I want to be a huntress" She remembered the… easier times of her childhood.

"Why is that? Hoping you'll live a happily ever after?" Blake smiled back.

"I hope we all will. As a girl I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books. Someone who fought for what was right, and protected people who couldn't protect themselves" She stated proudly, Corvin just chuckled at this and everybody turned at him.

"That's really naïve and childish Ruby" He told her straight faced, Yang frowned and was about to defend her sister when Corvin continued "But you remind me of someone I once knew… She was a good person who said the very same things to me… I of course laughed at her and told her that she was over her head, but she didn't relent. I saw the same determination in her eyes as the one in yours… In time she somehow swayed me and I supported her as much as I could. It was hard and grueling, sometimes the world looked bleak and devoid of all things good but she marched onwards, uncaring for any obstacles… and guess what, she was actually doing it. She was changing the world for the better…" Corvin had a faraway look in his eyes "So don't ever change Ruby, Void knows the world needs more people like you" Corvin smiled at the blushing girl. Yang's frown disappeared and Blake put on a barely visible approving smile.

"Thanks… That's why I'm here" She nodded confidently, Yang chose this moment to wrap her sister in a one armed hug.

"I told you Rubes! Friends are all around you! You just gotta make the first step!" Yang said loudly, Ruby decided that she didn't like that position so she tried to shove her sister's arm off her, it failed spectacularly and the pair began to wrestle for dominance.

Corvin and Blake chuckled at their antics and turned back to their books.

"Corvin, why did you come to Beacon? You speak and act awfully more mature than the rest of first years?" Blake asked without looking up from her book.

"I could ask you the same thing" Corvin replied nonchalantly. Blake hesitated a bit before answering.

"… I wanted a fresh start" She admitted reluctantly.

"And I wanted a happily ever after like Ruby said, but my past caught up to me…" He nodded his head in the general direction of Blake. "It will catch up to you once as well" Her bow twitched and her eyes shot up from her book to look at her partner in surprise.

"How did you-"

"The constant tenseness in your shoulders, your eyes subtly measuring everyone in the room, judging by your sleeping back you sleep with your back to the wall, do I need to go on?" He flipped a page in his book. Blake stared at him with wide eyes, not knowing what to say.

"I don't know what you did and it's probably not my business, but it speaks volumes that you decided to leave it all behind for a better life" Blake looked down with a shameful expression on her face "It takes courage for people like us to make a change and for that you deserve this easier life" Blake perked up again with a confused expression.

"But know that one way or the other your past will catch up to you and if you're not careful it could destroy your newly earned life"

Corvin knew many killers in many worlds, some felt remorse and sought redemption for their deeds. Few people achieved that redemption, but all of them had to face their past in their own ways. He was one of those killers who never sought redemption, he always tried to limit the collateral damage of his work and it worked most of the time but he never felt as if he did any wrong. In his eyes all he did was bring justice upon lost souls. Maybe this was his punishment for all the things he'd done, Corvin thought bitterly. Maybe karma had enough of him and threw a wrench in his life as some sort of cosmic 'justice'.

Corvin looked up and saw that the pair of siblings got into a rather loud argument with some white haired girl. He snapped his book close and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Blake asked, still surprised by her partner.

"I don't feel like sleeping tonight, I'll be outside in the courtyard practicing if anyone needs me" Corvin stated as he passed by a few sleeping bags, he stopped and turned back.

"Goodnight you people" He nodded with a smile to his conversation partners and stepped outside the ballroom.

* * *

 _And that was that, the chapter followed the story of the second and third episodes with a bit of deviation. The next 2-3 chapters will be like this with the story following the show's but after that it will deviate more and more. I want to say it now that I have a somewhat unique idea of Aura for this story and will explain how it works next chapter, because frankly, Rooster Teeth never gave us much about the mechanics of the phenomena, only a general description (Including the World of Remnant explanation as well). So I decided I needed to flesh it out a bit because if I don't then a lot of fight scenes I planned couldn't happen realistically. But besides that I don't have much to say, so see you next time._


	4. Chapter 4

_Hello there! I'm The Royal Protector and you're reading the fourth chapter of Honor For All. It has been a while hasn't it? I personally didn't plan on even continuing this story honestly, with This War Of Ours and all, but then Volume 6 came out. And me, being myself, I wanted to make that story consistent with canon's background, namely the Gods, Silver Eyes etc. since that story is a long term project of mine._

 _With that being said, I decided to wait until the Volume ends to continue writing. This left me with quite a few available hours to write other stuff. I decided to a flip a coin to decide what story to continue, and Honor For All won as you can guess._

 _Now, I must admit that I forgot a lot about this story, the direction I was going, whole scenes and characters escaped my mind and I had to spend the last month or so basically trying to remember everything. It's a work in progress still, but I remember more and more as I write it._

 _Finally, I should also make it clear that I will only continue this story until Vol 6 ends, after that I would like to return to This War Of Ours._

 _So leave a review, follow and favorite if you feel like it, it really helps if I know someone reads these._

ecoolasice _: Thanks, I should correct it tomorrow._

Venader _: Here you go. :)_

 _FictionMilitia: I'm flattered. :) I should post another chapter next weekend._

' _Thoughts'_

" _Speech"_

 _*Sounds*_

 _Enjoy:)_

 _Disclaimer: RWBY and Dishonored are not my property, the only thing I own are my OCs._

* * *

 **Chapter 4: The Marked Raven**

It was early dawn at Beacon and all of its inhabitants were still sleeping soundly, there were some, especially the staff, who were in the process of getting ready for the day but they were a significant minority.

*Crack*

Well, almost all inhabitants.

The gunshot echoed across the surrounding buildings before fading into nothingness. Nobody was bothered to check it out since it most likely came from the training fields of the academy and as to who would even use them at such an ungodly hour? Well nobody had the drive to check.

"Tsk, what a bother" Corvin sighed as the lifeless corpse of the raven he had just shot impacted the ground with a soft thud before it disappeared in tendrils of darkness. Corvin holstered his pistol and with a light yawn he decided that his training for toni- today, he corrected himself as he caught sight of the rising sun on the horizon, would be enough.

He had spent the entire night perfecting his newfound ability, the Void Shroud, and he was ashamed to admit that he hit a considerable roadblock that he couldn't circumvent no matter how hard he thought about it.

The Void forsaken barrier could only defend against one kind of attack and he had to manually take his time calibrating it if he wanted it to be effective against something else. For example it could absorb the kinetic force of a firebolt but couldn't do anything against the heat it generated. To make matters worse the barrier had reliability issues. Sometimes it would flicker in and out of existence no matter how much energy he put into maintaining it or it would simply forget what kind of attacks it was supposed to absorb. It was frustrating for Corvin and he only now realized how much easier earlier Marked Ones had it while the Outsider was still around... Technique creation was much less of a hassle back then than nowadays. Then Marked Ones could perfect techniques in a matter of days at most while it took him weeks to have grasped Blink. The learning curve back then was immense…

But nevermind that, Corvin could hammer out the reliability issue with time, lots and lots of time…

He frowned and decided some coffee would do him some good before Initiation. With that in mind he made his way to the cafeteria, silently praying that coffee did exist in this world in the first place. Corvin didn't know what to expect from this 'test' but he was confident he could handle whatever this world could throw at him. Perhaps some would call it careless overconfidence but he would say it was experience talking, he was an adaptable individual after all.

* * *

"For years you have trained to become warriors, and today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest" Ozpin told the potential students before him. They have been asked earlier to stand on several suspicious looking platforms and had done so with only a raised eyebrow, though Corvin eyed the platforms a bit more warily than others before choosing the one furthest away from Ozpin.

"Now, I'm sure many of you have rumors about the assignments of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion" The woman named Goodwitch, if Corvin heard correctly, continued the Headmaster's speech "Each of you will be given teammates… today" She told them unnecessarily dramatically, Corvin just rolled his eyes and crossed his arms muttering something about stupid theatrics when he heard Ruby sputter like a kid.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone whom you can work well" Ozpin continued on and Corvin began to think about who he should choose to be his "partner". He barely knew five people amongst his peers and if he were to be honest, none of them had him jumping around in joy. The sisters, while somewhat amusing, didn't seem like much, the blonde boy, Jaune, would probably trip over his own feet and shoot himself in the head judging from his earlier shenanigans. He didn't have any idea about the capabilities of the white haired girl, but he would preferably rule out her as well, if only because he could not bear her annoying attitude without him shooting her… only in the foot, he wasn't that petty to kill someone because they got on his nerves. That left Blake… The silent catgirl who was hiding the fact. He noticed the extra pair of ears when he activated Dark Vision to scan his peers. He had no clue why she hid them, but then again, what she did with her own body was really none of his business. Corvin shrugged to himself, she seemed like a capable individual and he had to admit that she bothered him the least amount in their entire year. Corvin nodded to himself, if he had to get a partner then he would choose her, if she was alright with it of course.

"-That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next for years" Ozpin finished with a barely concealed smirk.

Corvin deadpanned while everyone else delivered their own reactions ranging from shock to smug approval.

"After you're partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way, do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die" A few people gulped at that but he didn't even bat an eyelash, although he frowned as something occurred to him.

"You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one, and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately" Ozpin finished his speech and let everyone take a moment to collect their thoughts.

"Are there any questions?" He asked after the brief pause and Corvin didn't even bother to raise his hand.

"How are we supposed to form pairs if there are an uneven number of students?" Corvin crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. The other students furrowed their brows and looked around each other, only now noticing that little detail.

"Thank you Mr. Halden, I almost forgot about that part of my speech" Ozpin nodded appreciatively towards his direction, Corvin just frowned at him, he still didn't like his character.

"Every year we offer one student the opportunity to prove themselves skilled enough to receive novice Huntsmanship. This position is meant for students who are skilled enough to get their Hunter license even without the combat training our academy has to offer, but lack the academic background that would otherwise be expected of a certified Hunter. Due to their advanced status they are not partnered with anyone else, nor are they put into teams of four, though they are still part of that year's curriculum otherwise" Ozpin explained before taking a sip of his coffee.

"They still need to take a combat exam like every other Hunter to acquire their license, but they are otherwise treated as a regular Hunter" A hand shot up like a bullet "I believe I'm skilled enough for the position, sir!" The white haired girl declared with pomp and not a few seconds later several more hands joined her with several voices claiming to be good enough. That all soon changed when Goodwitch shot each of them a scathing glare and all of them shrank back on themselves.

Ozpin shook his head minutely "Now, I must warn you that a powerful creature inhabits the forest that will not rest until it hunted at least one of you down" You could hear a pin drop on the grass below after that statement.

"This high B class Grimm is an aggressive, intelligent and relentless hunter that will seek out prey that is separated from others, though it will attack any prey that brings too much attention to itself. As I stated before, it is in your best interest to be paired with someone so to avoid encountering the creature in the first place" Ozpin informed the students in a grave tone.

What was left up to interpretation was that this "novice Hunter" would be its most likely target since he or she wouldn't be paired with anyone, or at least that's what Corvin concluded, and it also served as further incentive for students to team up as soon as possible. Corvin cracked his neck and smiled, maybe this whole thing could prove to be a good challenge for his diminished state. He had no idea what a high B class Grimm was supposed to be, but he welcomed the challenge all the same, plus he often went on solo missions for the Order. He was considered more of a singular operative anyways.

"Now, is there anyone who is interested in the position?" Ozpin announced and predictably all students looked everywhere else but the Headmaster. Corvin sighed disappointedly and questioned where had all that competitive spirit gone.

"I'll take up on that offer if you don't mind, Headmaster" Corvin announced nonchalantly, he may have disliked him but he knew better than to show disrespect. Suddenly he felt like a fish in an aquarium when he noticed all eyes on him. The other first years were looking at him like he had lost his mind while Goodwitch silently shook her head and Ozpin merely sipped from his mug.

"Good, take your positions" He declared and everyone moved into some form of stance, leaving Corvin confused as to what was going to happen.

"Uhm, Sir, I've got a question" Jaune spoke up uncertainly and Corvin heard whirring noises from under his feet. Curious and mildly alarmed he activated Dark Vision and looked at the platform beneath him. His eyes widened comically when he realized what was about to happen and tried to get off the platform but he was too slow and got launched hundreds of meters up into the air, yelling something almost incoherent about Ozpin, his mug off coffee and broken teeth.

* * *

'That's it' Corvin decided 'When all this is over I'm going to have a few heated words with Ozpin, power level difference or not' The wraith thought scathingly while he flew through the air, reaching the top of his arc.

'But first, I need to survive this Outsider damned fall' Corvin thought about his options available to him before snapping his fingers and drawing power from his Mark. He focused on the tree canopies of the forest and released his hold on the technique. A moment later a black raven formed out of swirling shadows and flew to meet him mid-air. This bird was an identical copy of the one he shot before, during the morning and night before. He Summoned multiple ravens and ordered them to attack him randomly to keep him on edge during training. By his calculations Corvin and the bird would meet well into the last quarter of his arc, so he waited patiently for the rendezvous, ready to use Possession on an otherwise perfectly normal bird, which from any other person's perspective was just passing by.

That is, until something ridiculous happened.

"Bridie, No!" A crimson blur shot past Corvin and flattened his Summon before disappearing below the trees. His expression of complete bewilderment and cry of "Void damn it Ruby!" was soon replaced with dread as he neared the forest beneath him. Thinking quickly on his feet Corvin realized that he didn't have time to Summon and Possess another bird. Blink didn't cancel out momentum so that wasn't an option either and neither was Far Reach.

Arriving at the canopies he acted on instinct and created a Doppelganger on a nearby branch that was strong enough to hold his weight. The clone used Transposition on Corvin just before he impacted the hard ground and took the hit for his creator. The Doppelganger dispelled into shadows a second later while Corvin struggled to stand on his two feet up on the tree branch.

Nighty seemed to voice it discomfort and it caused Corvin's muscles to seize up and him to fall off the branch like a metal pole. He rigidly impacted the ground and a shimmering shroud absorbed the force of his fall. His body lay motionless for almost an entire minute before he regained control and took a huge gulp of air.

"Ouch, that hurt" Corvin panted heavily and noted that the grass wasn't that bad of a bed right now and decided to… rest a bit before continuing. He lay there for almost five whole minutes when he heard loud growling from somewhere in the undergrowth. His body tensed but he still made no motion to stand up. A couple of seconds of waiting later something leaped at him and almost pinned him to the ground but a timely Blink got him out of danger and up to a sturdy looking branch.

'Now, what the hell are you?' Corvin thought contemplatively as he gazed at the… blackish werewolf? That seemed thoroughly confused at its lack of prey. Was that a Grimm? Corvin saw a couple of werewolves in his time but this one seemed… different. Night black fur, bone protrusions all over the body and…. a strangely familiar white bone mask adorning its face.

'That can't be what I think it is? Right?' Corvin's face took on a somewhat wary expression and silently activated Dark Vision. He gazed upon the creature and what he saw made him frown. The creature reeked of dark Void energies, it almost looked like it was a… Summon, but that couldn't be right, something still didn't add up.

'I need to have a closer look' Suspicions now all but confirmed he hopped down to ground level and whistled at the Grimm. It snapped its head in his direction and charged at him. Corvin Blinked away at the last moment and reappeared a few meters away, face still scrunched up in curiosity. This game of cat and mouse continued on for a few more repetitions before Corvin decided to have a closer look at that mask.

He took out his pistol and sword and waited until the Grimm got close enough in its charge before Blinking in its guard and levelling his weapons at the creature's shoulders. He blasted off a shoulder with a point-blank buckshot round and cut off the other arm with a swing of his blade, he then Blinked away before he got trampled by the howling creature. The Grimm fell to the ground, trashing like a rabid animal while Corvin calmly walked up to it and shot it in its knees to make sure it couldn't get back up. He then planted a foot on the back of its neck so it wouldn't wiggle and then kneeled before its face mask. The creature snapped its maw angrily at him, sending black saliva flying everywhere, Corvin at that point had enough of this creature's idiocy and promptly used his sword as a nail and pinned the creature's snout to the ground. Now the Grimm could only whimper as Corvin touched its face mask with a thinking expression on his face.

His eyes widened in realization "This is a Rune" He could remember the lessons his master gave him and his sister on these things. They were the reason the early Marked Ones were as powerful as they were. Runes made out of the bones of Void born creatures were excellent conductors for Void energies and helped greatly in control as well. These were the reason the learning curve was so staggeringly high compared to nowadays. Runes and Bone Charms were illegal in the Order because of ideological reasons and the psychological effects they had on any non-Marked people. Corvin himself only ever saw one Rune before on a research project that was directly authorized by the High Council, and still even that was a controversial decision.

At the sound of more leaves rustling Corvin retrieved his sword and shot the downed creature in the head, ending the Summon's life. The Grimm disappeared into a cloud of black smoke, further convincing Corvin that someone was playing with the powers of the Void in this world. He activated Dark Vision and looked around himself.

In the undergrowth surrounding him he saw six familiar dark shapes converging on his position. He stared calmly at the largest Void signature as it approached and reloaded his pistol. A few seconds later six werewolf like creatures burst into the small clearing and circled Corvin. Five were nigh identical to the Grimm he just killed and the last one, the one with the largest Void signature, looked like an oversized, heavily armored and armed variant of it. Corvin looked around the circling… pack and decided to dub the largest one as an Alpha.

Deciding that he was behind schedule as he was already, he brought up his sword in a reverse grip with his pistol at the ready and made the first move.

He Blinked in front of an unsuspecting Grimm and shoved his pistol at its throat, pulled the trigger and before the decapitated head hit the ground he Blinked to another Grimm and bisected one of its arms with his blade. The Grimm howled in rage and brought its other arm to strike but the attack was intercepted by Corvin skewering its hand and locking it in place.

Guttural growling from behind warned Corvin of another Grimm attacking, thinking quickly he kicked the injured Grimm in the chest and sent it flying into one of the trees, cracking bones and bark. The Grimm completed its powerful swing but its claws met no resistance as they passed through thin air.

The remaining four Grimm swiveled their heads in confusion as to where their prey had disappeared to when suddenly one of them lifted its claw high in the air and sent it through the back of one its brethren. The Grimm disappeared in a cloud of smoke and the attacker stumbled onto all fours when a cloud of ethereal black smoke seeped out of its back and formed into the very person they were fighting against.

Corvin wasted no time and appeared behind the last normal Beowolf and bisected it at the waist with a wide swing of his sword. He lowered his blade and turned to face the Alpha of the group, the one Beowolf he possessed earlier threw up whatever bones and flesh it had in its stomach before collapsing in a heap and dispelling into smoke.

The last two remaining combatants eyed each other, the Alpha wary of the human, but nevertheless growling in hatred and defiance. Corvin's attention was focused elsewhere however, he had more trouble Possessing that Beowolf than it was strictly necessary and he intended to find out why, even if it was inefficient to do so now. He locked eyes with the beast and turned into a cloud of black smoke that darted to the Alpha and latched onto it like a leech.

'There it is again, this resistance' Corvin growled, well, as much as an immaterial smoke cloud could, and pressed his consciousness onto this new host. He felt like… something was pushing against him, a Void connected will that already inhabited- no, controlled this Summon like a puppet. Another consciousness was wrestling for control with him, but he was steadily overpowering it, he didn't know how, but he was doing it successfully.

He won, he saw through the eyes of the Alpha and could control its movements like any other time. He lifted a clawed hand to its throat and slit it.

He quickly ended the Possession before he died with his host and appeared before the dying Alpha, as it fell forward he grabbed its facemask with his Marked hand and flared his Mark. Just as the Alpha crumbled into black dust the white bone mask remained this time, pristine and unharmed.

Corvin was conflicted.

Someone was using the Void to summon these creatures and control possibly all of them. He didn't know as to what extent this person controlled them but it was clear that if they wanted they could assume direct control whenever they wanted. Then there was Ozpin, that fire woman and Ruby. All of them possessed Void powers without actually knowing what the Void was, or he assumed they didn't know, Ruby seemed too innocent to know about such things.

This world caused a very bad feeling in Corvin's stomach.

If the Order knew-… Corvin knew, but he wasn't with them anymore.

He noticed how the Runes disappeared with the rest of the body during the dispelling process and stepped in personally to stabilize the last one so it wouldn't disappear.

And so, he arrived at a crossroads.

Take the Rune, adhere to his supposed duty as a former Agent of the Order and send it to them as evidence of Void manipulation? That would result in the Order coming here and purging every single Void user in this world, just because their sense of duty required to do so.

Or keep silent and save this world from the wrath of the Order?

…

…

…

Then something occurred to Corvin.

He never thought of himself as a hero, he did what he had to complete his missions, but he realized now that his decision now may reflect him as one. He tsked and sighed, he put away the Rune into his coat with a wicked smile on his face.

Why doom this world to the Order when it could serve as a perfect means to get stronger? He no longer had any obligations to the Order and if these Grimm were as numerous here as he heard then that meant a nigh infinite amount of Void conductive bones he could use to get stronger. Stronger than almost every other member at a speed reminiscent of the legendary Marked Ones from before the Order was founded.

Corvin smiled, his revenge seemed closer and closer.

* * *

"Possible time dilation, magically appearing shadow tendrils, instant short ranged teleportation, some form of summoning and now a cloning ability? Ozpin, this person is dangerous" Glynda shook her head as she and Ozpin watched the feed on the school year's newest addition. They saw how his "landing strategy" had seemingly gone up in smoke when young Miss Rose crashed into his summoned animal, what he intended to do with the bird in the first place was a mystery to them.

Nevertheless, she could appreciate his quick thinking with switching places with his shadow clone in order to survive the fall.

"That still remains to be seen" Ozpin amended, face scrunched up in focus as he looked at the screen in hand "He is somehow capable of using magic, and in some cases at a level that even surprises me" He admitted without hesitance.

"You mentioned that he is suspicious of you?" Glynda glanced at him form the corner of her eyes.

"Yes, I believe so. After our conversation his eyes changed and he seemed to see through me, quite literally" He explained "He seemed afraid after that and hastily left after me. I believe letting my powers flare like they were once capable of scared him" He regretfully shook his head. He had not intended to scare the young man with his powers, he had merely wanted to show him that he was not the only with magical abilities.

"And you still intend to recruit him?" Glynda asked skeptically.

"He could be a powerful asset if he commits to our cause. I haven't met another magic user that wasn't a Maiden in centuries, much less one with a near masterful level of skill such as him, and besides, you saw firsthand how he came back from an otherwise fatal circumstance. Perhaps he could have the solution to Amber's condition" Ozpin nodded firmly.

Glynda glanced Ozpin with wary eyes before commenting "He's moving"

On the screen a normal Beowolf tried to maul him while he was prone but he simply vanished from the scene. The two professors watched closely as Corvin played with the creature as if it was a bull.

"Remind me to give him a lecture about toying with deadly monsters" she frowned disapprovingly.

"Look closer, I don't believe he is merely playing with it" Ozpin advised with a thinking expression on his face. Glynda huffed disbelievingly but did as advised, her face morphed into a confused expression the longer she watched the encounter.

"He looks like he is analyzing the Beowolf, but why?" She stated with a light frown. Surely, he must've seen a Beowolf before? They were one of the most wide spread type of Grimm on Sanus.

Ozpin hummed in agreement but refrained from answering. Corvin suddenly stopped simply dodging and went on the offensive, the two Professors watched with confused interest as he immobilized the Grimm, instead of killing it like anyone else would have.

"He's studying it" Ozpin confirmed without a doubt in his mind and Glynda nodded in an affirmative. Now, the only question in their mind was why he had done so? Then it seemed Corvin was disturbed by something because he ended the Beowolf's life in an instant and turned to face the rest of the Grimm's pack.

"He's able to possess Grimm" Glynda stated more than questioned as they saw him doing so and quickly dispatching the entire pack in just a few seconds.

"Yes, and I believe we haven't yet seen the end of his skillset" Ozpin noted before a loud scream could be heard on the other side of the camera. Corvin and the two spectators perked up at the sound and after a few seconds of silence Corvin vanished from his spot and left the camera's field of view.

"Glynda, please stand by in case it's the Wendigo" Ozpin said with a light frown while Glynda answered in a low "Yes, Headmaster".

* * *

"It means you're a big stupid jerk and I hate you!" Ruby sputtered and pointed an accusing finger at Weiss.

"Ugh! Just keep moving!" Weiss complained irritably and tried to march away.

"Oh, just keep moving! Hurry up, wah, watch where you're going! Why are you so bossy?" Ruby imitated Weiss which caused the white haired heiress to turn around and heatedly defend herself.

"I'm not bossy! Don't say things like that"

"Stop treating me like a kid!"

"Stop acting like kid!"

"Well stop acting like you're perfect!"

"I'm not perfect!"

The two bickered back and forth, unaware of the negativity they spewed out like a plague and the nightmarish creature it attracted. This creature have been watching the pair attentively for the past couple of minutes and waited until most other sources of negativity were far enough to intervene with its hunt. Now, the time has come and it made its move. A bone chilling cold had enveloped the small clearing the two resided in as the beast opened its half rotten jaw and let its icy breath spread out.

"You don't even know- hey, do you feel this cold?" Ruby asked her partner, she was still a bit disappointed at that fact, while holding her sides from the sudden cold.

"What are you talking about you dolt? It's spring and warm as- what is this?" Weiss stopped her scolding when she felt a chill crawling up her spine. She made to complain but suddenly two bolts of ice shot out from the woods and impacted her feet, freezing her in place. Before any of them could react a black blur shot across the clearing darting for Weiss with an arm raised high.

Weiss let out a cry of surprise and braced herself for impact, but fortunately for her, Ruby intercepted the strike with her scythe and stood between her and the Wendigo Grimm they had been warned about.

"G-Got your back, partner" Ruby gritted out as she struggled to hold back the clawed appendage. Weiss blinked once in surprise then her mouth settled into a thin line and she took out Myrtenaster, the rapier cycled for Fire Dust and melted the ice trapping her.

* * *

'That sounded like that white haired girl' Corvin noted with narrowed eyes as he turned in the direction the scream came from. He pondered what to do for a moment before activating Dark Vision and doing a quick look around for anymore creatures in the area. He found no Grimm nor any people in the immediate vicinity, apart from two sources of blinding white, other students, probably a pair, and two black blurs with them. Corvin frowned, something seemed odd, one of the black and white blurs seemed to be merged into one.

Corvin hummed in realization, he had only seen three people here with such condition; rooftop fire woman, Ozpin and Ruby. By process of elimination that blur could only be Ruby. 'She must've partnered with the white haired girl then' He hummed before he noticed how their Aura's light got dimmer as the seconds ticked by.

'They must be fighting a particularly vicious… creature' He thought with some hesitance. They could handle it right? He wasn't the worrying type by any means but Ruby was amusing on some level, it would be a shame if something happened to her. His lips then settled into a thin line as he saw one their Aura's light take a considerable dip.

Without much fare Corvin disappeared in a Blink and quickly made his way over to the unlucky pair. No one else was close enough to help them, even for him the only way he could make it in time, judging by how fast their lights dimmed, was by abusing Blink to its current limits and literally blurring through the forest faster than the eye could process.

'They are just kids, I'll help them out this one time' Corvin reasoned, like he had mentioned before, people died in his Initiation, they had been kids back then as well, but that detail seemed to pass by the Elders' heads when they threw a bunch of 16 year olds into a pocket dimension filled with Envisioned and other Void monstrosities without any weapons other than their Marks and wits.

Corvin growled at the past memory but shook his head, he couldn't get lost in thought now. Other kids, like he once was, were going through something familiar, albeit less intense and ultimately less deadly.

He whizzed past countless trees, only coming out of Blink when he needed to take a turn or when Nighty started to act up. Finally, after a minute or so he came out of Blink and caught sight of a large humanoid figure bringing down its clawed hand towards a caught off guard Ruby, who would have no time to dodge.

In an instant, Corvin materialized by the Grimm and cut off the attacking appendage with an upward swing. The Grimm stumbled back in apparent surprise and Corvin used the opportunity to take out his pistol and shoot it in the chest point-blank.

*Crack*

The buckshot sent the Wendigo stumbling back further but Corvin didn't stop with his assault. He sent shot after shot into its chest until chest area became nothing more than a gaping cavity bigger than a watermelon. After the sixth shot the hand-held elephant gun clicked empty and Corvin Blinked directly in front of the Wendigo and landed a superpowered kick on its exposed spine, breaking it and sending the body careening into the nearest tree.

Corvin huffed condescendingly and muttered "Good riddance" The other two humans in the clearing shook themselves out of their shock and noticed the third giving them an assessing look.

"Ha-! Corvin! It's good to see you!" Ruby greeted with a relived smile. Corvin nodded in response and waved with one hand as he reloaded his pistol.

"Wait, you know that madman who volunteered for suicide by Grimm?!" The white haired one asked incredulously. She was picking herself up from the ground, using her rapier as leverage.

"Yeah! And he's not mad, right?" Ruby's voice got a little weaker at the end, because, well… he did basically volunteer to fight a Grimm way above their level by his lonesome. He just rolled his eyes at them.

"How are you two holding up?" He asked instead of unnecessary banter, they were lucky the Grimm was easier to take down than he had expected, although he didn't know why he thought that an entire clip of buckshot wouldn't kill almost anything.

"Never better!" Ruby reported cheerfully but a deadpan stare from Corvin quickly made her fidget "Alright, I may be a bit tired, low on Aura and a bit lost, but the last one is Weiss' fault" The last one got an indignant squeak from the other girl.

"And you, Snow White?" Corvin could assume her name was Weiss, but he couldn't pass up the reference.

"Don't call me that!" She glared and approached them, looking at the strange Grimm that had yet to disappear "And I'm just fine! I'm stuck with a dunce for a partner, I got lost in this stupid forest" "I knew it!" "and I nearly got mauled by a rabid Wendigo! Of course I'm fi-!" She rambled but stopped when she seemingly caught sight of something weird.

"Why is that thing still there?" That got the attention of the other two and all three turned to see the previously dead Grimm stagger to its feet jerkily as its chest mended and arm reformed from dark tendrils down to its wicked claws.

The Wendigo stood at an impressive three meters from the ground. It had slim, and dare he say, skinny build which stood in contrast to its apparent strength. Its humanoid figure was plated with several Rune-like bone protrusions, which hugged its half rotten dark skin. Its disproportionately long arms ended in wicked, serrated claws the length of Corvin's forearm. The Grimm's head was perhaps the most interesting however, its elongated head housed a mouth full with razor sharp teeth and a disturbingly long tongue. The upper side of its head however seemed to have fused with its bone mask completely, creating an outer skull for the creature, its shape greatly reminiscent of a deer's, with two large antlers on top. The Wendigo's head snapped up jerkily and let out a blood freezing scream at the three humans.

Corvin was a bit taken back by the Summon's regeneration ability but nevertheless brought up his sword in a reverse grip.

"You two should stay back for a bit and let your Auras recharge" Corvin commented and moved to stand between the two girls and the Wendigo.

"What?! No way! We can handle ourselves just fine! We'll take it together!" Ruby immediately protested and to emphasize her point pulled back the bolt on her sniper-scythe. Weiss strangely didn't protest and actually sided with her partner by standing beside her, rapier at the ready.

"I'm not saying to stay out of it entirely, just don't get too close. One or two more hits and your Auras won't protect you anymore" He amended noncommittally, his focus on the Wendigo before him. The two girls seemed to want to say more but the Wendigo decided to take things seriously and charged at them like a cheetah. Corvin just had enough time to bring up his sword to block an overhead swing from the Wendigo, but he immediately needed to put his other arm behind the blade as to not crumble under its monstrous strength.

He then Blinked away when the Wendigo's other arm tried to pierce his side, he appeared above the Grimm and brought down his sword in a thrusting motion, hoping to pierce its neck, but for some odd reason it knew exactly where he was and did a wide swing upwards to bisect him. Corvin's eyes widened at this and used Possession to dematerialize himself before his body was turned into shredded meat. The dark cloud then seeped into the skin of the Wendigo, which caused it to trash around wildly, cleaving several tress in half before the black smoke was seemingly ejected from it and travelled back between the two girls, who just stared at the fight not knowing whether to interrupt or not.

Then Corvin materialized form the smoke and stood between them with a deep frown on his face.

"I can't take control of it" He said with barely detectable surprise in his voice.

"You can control Grimm?" Weiss asked skeptically.

"I can take control over anything that has some sort of nervous system, Grimm included" Corvin explained "Or at least it worked with other Grimm" He added as an afterthought. It seemed that presence in the Wendigo was stronger than in the werewolf. He didn't have a clue as to why, perhaps it was because the Wendigo was more evolved and could hold more of the summoner's consciousness? That could explain the Wendigo's increased intelligence.

"Uhm, guys? It's doing something creepy" Ruby said unsurely and they refocused on the Grimm before them. The Wendigo seemed to have collected itself and set its eyes directly on Corvin, red eyes filled with primal hatred. 'Oh? It wants to target me? I'm honored'.

Its mouth unhinged and a fluid like liquid nitrogen seeped out of its mouth. Droplets impacted the ground and the grass and bushes flash froze around the creature. The air became unnaturally still, as if the light breeze itself froze in the air. The walking nightmare then let out a bone chilling scream and spat out a blob of the liquid directly at us.

"Don't let that fluid touch you! Your Aura may protect you from the cold but the ice will leave you vulnerable!" Corvin yelled as they dodged to the sides, the blob hit the tree behind them and completely froze its trunk in a matter of seconds.

Meanwhile the Wendigo jumped high into the air, much higher than any of the trees and came back like a meteor made out of ice. The trio barely had time to jump away after their first evasion as the Grimm impacted the ground in an explosion of ice and that liquid.

They didn't wait for it to stand up from its crater and all three simultaneously opened fire with their ranged weapons. Ruby shot it with Fire Dust cartridges from Crescent Rose, Corvin emptied his entire clip of slugs into the thing but the creature didn't seem fazed as incendiary rounds and high caliber bullets tore off burning chunks of rotting flesh. It stood up as its right arm was blasted off and stared at them with an unnervingly calm expression. Seeing as bullets didn't seem to faze the thing Weiss spun the Dust chamber on her rapier and unleashed a powerful windblast at the Wendigo. The wind strike hit the Grimm and reacted with the Fire Dust and small flames already present on its body and produced a large fireball that engulfed the entire crater.

The trio slowly lowered their weapons, confident that nothing without Aura could have survived an explosion that large.

"Now, I kinda understand why the Headmaster wanted us to team up. I don't want to think about what would have happened if I fought it alone" Ruby shivered slightly and got a surprisingly earnest nod from Weiss.

"Yeah, listen Ruby, I'm sor-" Weiss began but she was interrupted by another nightmare inducing scream and everybody present tensed as the smoke from the explosion slowly gave away to show the slowly mending body of the Wendigo as it staggered to its feet, its limbs jerking as its bones reformed under its skin. The liquid poured out of its wounds like some form of blood and caused the surrounding smoke to freeze in the air. Finally after what seemed like minutes the walking nightmare snapped upright and turned to look at them with strangely expressionless eyes. It then did something unexpected, it lifted its claws high and plunged them deep into its chest, the serrated blades poking out of its back. The Grimm shrieked in pain and slowly pulled them out, the chest wound mending only seconds after. Now the claws were drenched the strange blue-white liquid.

It was at this moment Corvin realized, it was high time he treated this fight with the seriousness it deserved.

"Ruby, take your partner and go get help" Corvin said without taking his eyes off the creature. Ruby and Weiss, who were frozen in shock and mild fascination when they saw the Grimm stab itself sputtered in protest.

"Are you mad?! This thing is too strong for you! You can't expect us to leave you alone!" Surprisingly it was Weiss who protested first but Ruby followed shortly after.

"Yeah! The only way we win is by taking this thing on together!"

Corvin wasn't happy with what they said, but they were right. This thing was way above their levels… in their current capabilities. If only he could get them to leave he could use his other powers without arousing suspicion on his person. He seriously doubted they could win even if they worked together, the sheer disparity between them was too great.

"Don't get cocky" Corvin warned as he slowly reloaded his pistol, wary of any sudden movements which might agitate the Grimm "Even if you weren't tired and beaten this thing would wipe the floor with us. Get help and come back, I'll keep its attention on myself and buy you some time"

"Then at least let me stay" Weiss commented, frustration and uneasiness clearly present on her features.

"Something tells me that thing is done playing around" He shook his head "One hit and you'll be down for the count" Weiss seemed conflicted for a few precious moments then relented with a huff.

"Fine, we'll be back soon… Ruby?" The red headed reaper slowly nodded, her dissatisfaction clear as she chewed on her lips. She then turned to Corvin and gave him a worried look.

"Stay safe… and good luck" Corvin nodded in acknowledgement and Ruby dashed to Weiss, she grabbed her and they disappeared in a shower of rose petals. Unfortunately for Corvin the Wendigo moved as soon as the girls disappeared and moved it did.

It was so fast it nearly became a blur for Corvin and it was only by him being on guard to begin with that he was able to roll under a swipe of icy death. Getting out of the roll he aimed his pistol the midriff of the creature and pulled the trigger.

*Crack*

To his surprise the buckshot didn't even made the thing lose balance, it instead brought down its other clawed hand and smacked him so hard he was sent flying. He impacted the ground with a grunt and rolled a couple of times before he tried to spring to his feet.

"What the-?" He began to say when he caught sight of the block of ice enveloping his chest area and keeping him frozen to the ground. He struggled to get free for about a second before a spear of darkness plunged into his gut and it was only thanks to his Void Shroud that he survived the blow. Still, it hurt like a bitch for Corvin and he made his opinion known by coughing his lungs out as the Wendigo grabbed his frozen body and continuously slammed it into the ground below like some kind of berserker. By the fifth slam the Wendigo seemed to have enough and threw him into a tree, cracking bark and causing leaves to fall.

"Great" Corvin coughed as he lifted a hand and saw his Void Shroud flickering in and out of existence before completely collapsing. He looked up and immediately Blinked away when he saw a mossy log flying towards him. He perched upon a branch, trying to find a weak spot on the Wendigo when it found him somehow, again. He frowned at that but couldn't think about it as the Wendigo slashed in a wide arc in his general direction and sprayed more of the liquid towards him. He Blinked away again to ground level and saw the still travelling liquid crystalize and form a blade of ice. He winced when the attack hit directly were he perched and cut the tree neatly in half.

Deciding that he really didn't want to draw this battle out Corvin prepared his weapons and Blinked directly in front of the Grimm. He pressed his pistol directly against its skin and pulled the trigger. As expected the bullet didn't even stagger the thing and it slammed a retaliatory claw where he would have been hadn't he Blinked away to the creature's back.

He fired again and ducked under a horizontal swing and fired again at its midriff. He then repeated the process of expertly dodging and firing at the thing's midriff until only one bullet remained.

He rolled away from a stab aimed at his neck and positioned himself against the side of the Wendigo. He awkwardly held both his sword and pistol in one hand and brought his arms around the creature's waist where he had shot it five times in the last few seconds, the bullet wounds haven't yet closed and he was aiming to take advantage of that. He quickly planted a foot against the Wendigo, enveloped his left hand in an underpowered Void Shroud and grabbed the blade of his sword. He then pulled the trigger.

*Crack*

Like a guillotine, his sword, propelled by the kickback of the elephant gun and his own muscles, cut through the already weakened body of the Wendigo like hot knife through butter. Corvin stumbled back from the strike and settled into a crouch a bit further away.

The bisected Wendigo shrieked like a Banshee but to Corvin's horror its lower body was already being reformed by tendrils of darkness.

"What the hell are you?" Corvin said in amazement as the damn thing shrugged off the otherwise completely lethal action. Deciding he needed a new strategy he went back to analyzing the Summon. Its body was basically indestructible as it kept regenerating any kind of damage they inflicted. It could use its blood as a flash freezer, one would think it would have a weakness against fire, but that wasn't the case, as Ruby's and Weiss' fire combo showed.

The only sure thing he could think of was complete evaporation of the body, but he didn't have access to techniques like that because of Nighty. Even if he were to try and use them their required power levels were on the same level as full on Time Dilation, meaning he would die from cardiac arrest the moment he began to cast them.

No elemental weakness, rapid regeneration, ice affinity, monstrous strength and speed… If this is a 'high B Class" Grimm then he dreaded to think of what these people would classify as an A Class or an S Class, if the latter category even exists.

'Come on Corvin, remember what Master Victor told you' He remembered back to his days as an apprentice.

"Everything has a weakness or drawback. Every creature and technique" He muttered as he looked up at the Wendigo which was staggering to its feet with its newly regrown, pristine legs, bone plates and all.

Corvin's eyes widened as his gaze landed on the thing's head.

The skull had a few scorch marks on it and a medium sized branch on one of the antlers was broken off, refusing to grow back. He quickly looked to its chest and saw the pristine chest piece on it.

Bingo.

Corvin stood up with newfound determination and reloaded his pistol. The Wendigo faced him and let its freezing blood flow out of its mouth. Corvin Blinked directly in front of it and fired a single buckshot at its head.

*Crack*

However, before the round could make contact, two clawed hands came up to shield the vulnerable spot and absorbed the shot. Corvin Blinked away before touching the ground and appearing behind it. He made to stab the creature at the base of its skull but then pours opened everywhere on the nightmare's skin and spewed out freezing blood at high speeds. Corvin was blown away by the omnidirectional attack and he could feel blocks of ice forming on his body as he landed.

He pried off as many as he could but his body was slowly turning blue from the cold, if he took another attack like that he could literally freeze to death in the middle of spring.

Corvin openly frowned at the creature as it turned to face him and thought on his next move. He couldn't afford to get close, lest he got another face full of freezing liquid, so blink was out. Possession didn't work because of the other presence in the creature. Physical damage to the body was useless, the only weak point was the skull. Simple summoning wouldn't do either, he didn't have enough control over Nighty to Summon an Envisioned. A simple Doppelganger would die almost instantly unless…

"I'm terribly sorry Nighty, but please bear with me" Corvin whispered to the not so small parasite and held up his Marked hand. The tattoo's light filtered through the bandages on his hand.

Suddenly not one, but four flashes of lights deposited four Doppelgangers beside him whom all had equipment similar to his. But he didn't stop there, two large whirlpools of darkness opened up on the ground and out of them flew dozens and dozens of ravens.

Corvin simply stood there, clutching his left arm in pain, but he refused to let it slow him down. Soon the portals closed and a living black swarm circled above his and his Doppelgangers' heads, one bird even landing on his shoulder. The bird tilted its head at the Grimm and cawed aggressively. Corvin lifted his non-Marked hand with a steely expression.

"Perish in the Void" He declared and the murder of birds all shot at the Wendigo like miniature missiles. The Doppelgangers wasted no time as well and Blinked to it, swords swinging and pistols discharging.

The swarm arrived just a moment later and began clawing, tearing and eating away at the flesh of the Wendigo. The Wendigo trashed around wildly, trying to kill the nimble birds without much success. Then it decided to focus on the Doppelgangers as it seemed to realize that the ravens couldn't cause any lasting harm to it. One of its swipes got lucky and cut a clone neatly in two, only for it to burst into black smoke. A moment later several ravens flew out of the smoke and dispersed into the murder. Several meters away a group of other ravens flew into each other, exploding into black smoke that seconds later formed into another Doppelganger, replacing the loss from earlier.

Corvin felt a small smile tug at his lips, these weren't normal clones. These were of his own brand, made by combining the cross-Summoning techniques and Doppelgangers. Upon dying the clones would turn into birds and vice versa, creating a nigh infinite loop that could only be broken by killing the caster or by the caster running out of energy.

The raven cawed once from his shoulder and nuzzled its head against his. He nodded in apparent understanding and disappeared into a cloud of smoke that disappeared into the raven's body.

The raven flew high up into the air, higher than any tree up until he reached what he thought was the highest point of his earlier launch. He then let gravity take over and plunged back towards the earth. It flapped its wings to gain speed a couple of times before reaching speeds where flapping would just slow it down. It pressed its wings against its side and homed in on its target like a smart missile.

He reached the small clearing with the still distracted Grimm and noted with approval that it was too preoccupied to notice it. It glided until the last moment where it chose the weak point it was aiming for.

Then, like a bullet the small raven impacted the Wendigo's eye socket at high speeds. Its head came out the other side and the Grimm staggered in shock as it registered the foreign entity inside it. The little bird then hid back inside the impact cavity and made its way towards the Grimm's brain. The Wendigo screeched in agony as it burrowed further and further until suddenly it all stopped.

The Wendigo's skull exploded in a shower of bone and black ichor as the Possession ended and Corvin returned to his full size, unfortunately for the Grimm, inside its skull.

Corvin spun backwards in the air and landed in a crouch, covered with quickly dissipating Grimm insides. The Wendigo's unnaturally stiff headless body stood there awkwardly for a second before dropping to the ground like its strings were cut loose and disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.

Corvin panted in exertion and noticed in fascination that several pieces of bone Runes were stabilized due to his stunt and he could collect them later.

'But first' He concentrated on his Mark and dispelled all of the Summons present. He then took a deep breath before going stock still and face planting on the ground as Nighty wreaked havoc in his system for the stunt he pulled. He lay there for several minutes before his muscles loosened up and Nighty settled back peacefully. He breathed in a huge gulp of air and decided that he really didn't like the 'how long can you go without breathing game'.

He picked himself off the ground and stumbled to a large tree, he then Blinked up to one of the sturdier branches and decided to take it easy for a couple of minutes.

* * *

Corvin walked tiredly into the small temple holding the supposed relics he had to bring back. Ruby and Weiss didn't come back for him and he had no idea what to make of that. It honestly didn't bother him that they left him to hang. He was just wondering what they had gotten themselves into.

He stepped inside the ruined building and deadpanned at the 'relics' "Chess pieces, really? The Academy couldn't afford a couple of museum pieces or something?" Corvin shook his head and made his way towards the small half circle of podiums. He looked around and saw that most pieces have been taken already. It wasn't that surprising really, he really took his time with the Wendigo and his observation.

After a quick headcount his face scrunched up in confusion. There were supposedly two whole sets here from what he could make out, judging by the few identical pairs remaining, yet there was an uneven number of podiums.

So it seemed there was a piece that didn't have a pair. Ozpin thought about his situation, how kind of him. Corvin chuckled dryly and searched for the one piece without a pair.

"Black Queen?" Corvin asked with a raised eyebrow. Arguably the most powerful piece, yet one of the least important, if he recalled. While a mere pawn could be sacrificed for any other piece and it was the king that mattered in the end, not the queen.

So Ozpin thought of him as a powerful, yet ultimately insignificant piece on the board.

How flattering.

He picked it up and walked out of the temple. A raven landed on his shoulder and tilted its head at the chess piece in its master's hand. Corvin showed it to the bird but both froze when they heard gunshots from the direction of the cliff. Corvin watched with bulged eyes as a crimson blur dragged a gigantic bird up the side of a cliff before beheading it swiftly.

"Okay, excuse accepted" Corvin said uneasily before noticing the distance he was supposed to walk… and climb.

"Yeah, how about no" He commented dryly before Possessing the raven on his shoulder and flying towards the cliffs.

 _And there you have it, a little update for an older story, hoped you liked it. See you later._


End file.
